When you get what you were afraid to hope for

Shock, amazement, disbelief, thankfulness, stunned, bewilderment, awe.......those are some of the emotions that follow when you get what you were afraid to hope for or even put a voice to.

We spent the weekend steeling ourselves for the worst, because let's face it, we have a  track record of hearing the worst.  Friends and family rallied around us as we anticipated Alex's biopsy this morning and the possible results.  All future plans were on hiatus.

We arrived at the hospital 2 hours too early - miscommunication between the doctors' office and us.  Things were not going as we expected, always unnerving.  They called Alex back for his ultrasound biopsy and wouldn't let us go with him.....also unnerving.  He slowly came walking back 20  minutes later.  The radiologist couldn't find a lymph node to biopsy; they looked on both sides of his neck and nothing!  Whatever was 'lit up' on that PET scan was gone.  That was the most I secretly hoped for but was afraid to say out loud.  We've learned not to hope for too much but today we got more than we could have hoped for and we are profoundly thankful.

Alex's oncologist will talk to the radiologist to confirm but he says this is good news.  We are still awaiting Stanford's opinion on the scan and will probably have to do another PET scan sooner rather than later but that's ok.  For today, we received more than we were afraid to hope for. 

P.S.  forgoing the mascara was still a good idea, I cried anyway.