Signs and symptoms and how God intervenes...continued

...as the days went on, it was obvious that David was becoming more and more fatigued, even after doing very little or even nothing at all! He was usually very busy and active, with tuning and piano repairs in the morning and teaching lessons in the afternoons and early evenings. He was also very busy with yardwork, house maintenance, church preparations and activities and daily living in general. Now, the simplest tasks would wear him out and he would accomplish less and less during a 24 hour span of time.

On Saturdays, our normal routine is to get up by 6:30 and spend the morning doing yard work and home maintenance/housework and then in the afternoon we would prepare for Sundays. For David, that meant going over the music for the worship service and preparing his Sunday School lesson. He could no longer do all this. He would now get up, then sit in his recliner all day- no energy at all to do anything! He admitted to feeling tired but didn't think that anything else was really the matter.

It is so important to know your spouse. To know their heart, their desires, their normal level of activity, their cognitive and physical abilities, their self. This is important in any marriage, but was especially crucial at this time because I was able to know without a doubt that something was very wrong with David. I finally talked him into going to the doctor... but he made an appointment for a regular physical a month later! He didn't even mention any symptoms he was having to the scheduling clerk.

On Mother's Day, Lydia and Hannah went out and bought a glucose monitoring system and tested David's blood sugar. They were really worried and it was obvious to both of our daughters that something was wrong with their Dad. They threw around ideas of what it could be; diabetes, heart disease, Pernicious anemia (which David's father had).... but brain tumor was never mentioned. After seeing that it wasn't just me that was worried, David agreed to let me make an appointment for him for that next week. We also agreed to tell our church family about the issues he was having so that they could join us in praying. I really believe now, that it was the prompting of the Holy Spirit that led me to move up that doctor's appointment rather than wait a month.

At this time, the only symptom that David was aware of having was fatigue. He was unaware of his mood changes, memory loss, or confusion and losing track of time. On Mother's Day, my granddaughter, Lauren (who has Spina Bifida and therefore always notices the way that other people get around) commented that "Granddaddy is walking funny." It was true, David was walking very slowly and deliberately, almost as if he was carefully thinking about his foot placement. I knew also that he had stumbled a few times in and around our home.
We went to the family physician that week after Mother's Day. They could find nothing wrong and made no suggestions, although they did order bloodwork. The doctor felt no sense of urgency although he did suggest a referral to a neurosurgeon once the labwork results were in. Again, I believe it is so important to know your spouse! To a doctor who sees someone only once a year, nothing may appear to be wrong. I knew there was something very wrong because I know my husband!

Several days went by and still we had heard nothing from the doctor's office concerning the lab results. I kept hounding the nurse at that practice. I believe this also was the prompting of the Holy Spirit. We know now that time was of the essence, and now that we can see the bigger picture we see that all this time saved (in moving up the appointment, pushing to get test results, etc) is why David is still alive today. The nurse was a little irritated with me but finally she called and let me know that she had the results and everything was normal. I later found out that the results had been in for several days, those are days that could have been critical! Praise God for His hand of protection on David!

Even though the test results were "normal" I knew we needed to see the neurosurgeon. Rather than wait on a referral, I called the neurosurgeon's office myself and made the appointment for May 20, just 11 days after Mother's Day. David went from walking "funny" on Mother's Day to having to be supported by me just to get into the neurosurgeon's office building. He was dragging his left foot and leg (due to his tumor being on the right side which affects function on the left side). We saw Dr. Michael Bowman at Raleigh Neurology. He is a wonderful doctor. He was very thorough in his exam and put David through many tests. He knew something was wrong and immediately ordered an MRI.

Again, I see the guidance of the Holy Spirit in all this. The MRI was going to be scheduled for Memorial weekend. David and I had planned to go away this particular weekend (the 21rst of May) for our anniversary. Instead, I pleaded with the MRI scheduling clerk to please give us a sooner date. God is so good! The clerk managed to fit David in that very next day. I didn't mind missing my weekend away as long as it meant finding out what was wrong with David.
By the next day, I had to get a wheelchair for David in order to get him into the MRI office. He was too weak to walk. In one day's time, his health and abilities had deteriorated so much! The MRI was at 3:00 that afternoon. I called Lydia, our oldest daughter, from the waiting room and told her how David was just not walking at all anymore. We also considered every possible medical issue that could be causing his symptoms. We even discussed Parkinsons syndrome. We still had not even considered a brain tumor. A very sweet, godly man in our church had just passed away from a brain tumor two weeks earlier. We watched his dear family go through a year of this, yet we never even thought it was going to happen to us. How could it hit two men in our very small church family?

Once the MRI was over, I took David home. I should mention here that I had not let him drive for some time, it was too scary for me to consider. So, we drove home knowing that with the MRI being scheduled so late in the day on a Friday, it was not likely that we would even hear from the neurosurgeon until the following Tuesday. Praise God again (and many times AGAIN)for His hand on David! Praise God for a radiologist that looked at that scan and knew what he was seeing! Praise God for a neurosurgeon who was available to get the results from that radiologist. Praise Him!

I had just made those famous hotdogs mentioned in a previous post (and which everyone at the hospital now knows about) and David was just getting ready to take his first bite... when the phone rang. It was the neurosurgeon.

...to be continued....