I'll take infection for $1000, Alex!

This is going to be blunt, but a LOT has been happening since we learned about a spot on a CT scan 2 weeks ago.

Because they see this thing on a CT scan, they have to confirm that it's cancer cells with a biopsy.  He had an appointment last Wednesday for an ultrasound guided biopsy.  Since we were already going to be in Houston for Thanksgiving the next day, we all loaded up and went to his appointment on the way to my moms house.  We were there for 2 hours, but they never were able to see anything with the ultrasound.  Therefore, no biopsy.  They weren't going to blinded gab a needle into his neck to find a small grape sized tumor that is centimeters away from his carotid artery.

As we were leaving, I looked at Bryce and said "I'm not allowed to get excited about this, am I..... "
He said "No, but it does feel good, huh?"

And it did.  Then, we went to my aunt's house for Thanksgiving.  Saw friends the next day.  Spending time with friends and family felt really good.  But Bryce wasn't himself.  Just laid around a bunch.  We came home Saturday.  Sunday was fine.  Monday, he said that he felt really crummy and had a fever.  He was basically useless all day.  He tried to sleep it off, but he just couldn't shake it.  He fell asleep on the couch, but woke me up at 1:30 in the morning.  TERRIFIED.  He thinks that cancer is breaking the surface near his stoma.  For someone that is a neck breather, having an open wound right next to the area where you breathe is a very scary thing.

I get up with him.  This thing is gross.  I will save you all of the gory details, but believe me when I say Guh-ROSS!  I take pictures and send them to his surgeon and her PA.  Then we try to go back to sleep.  It took a couple of hours, but we managed.  We get the reply from Dr. P and she says what we're scared of.  She thinks that cancer is busting at the seams.  So we got the kids to school and headed for MD Anderson in Houston while her PA was working on getting us appointments.  By the time we got there, things were set.

1:00 - Wound Care - We learned how to keep this thing clean and whatever.  But she tells us what we already knew.  There is infection.  She packs us up some supplies and sends us on our way.
3:00 - Dr. P - She again says that she's afraid that this is cancer coming out of his neck.  She takes a biopsy of the area since we couldn't get one with an ultrasound.  Writes a prescription for antibiotics and pain medicine.  Tells Bryce to start chemo STAT and find a trail to get on ASAP.

We came home kind of in the dumps.  I got the script filled for stuff and he started it that night (Tuesday).  Yesterday, he woke up with this thing looking WAYYYYYYYY less angry.  After just 1 antibiotic.  So I got to thinking.  What if all of this is just an infection.  So I started praying for this specifically.  Then I got to thinking a little more.  Can a really, REALLY bad infection look like a tumor on a CT scan?  So I started praying really, REALLY hard for that.

Yesterday, we get the email from Dr. P that the biopsy shows only inflammation.  Prayer Request #1 has been answered.  It doesn't appear to be cancer crawling out of his body.  So, that's kind of where we are today.  We've emailed her 2 pictures of this nasty thing each morning; yesterday and today.  There hasn't been much change in this thing from yesterday to today.  But it is way better than when it appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the night.  She is going to put him on a stronger antibiotic.  That was called in this morning.  She has told us to hold off on chemo.  Bryce will see his oncologist here in Austin tomorrow morning.  Dr. P is going to call him today to order a culture of this thing.  Meanwhile, she's trying to figure out how to get a biopsy of this spot underneath.

So, here's what I'm praying SOOOOO hard for.  What if..... just WHAT IF..... the spot they see in the CT scan is infection?  What if his cancer isn't there at all?  I can honestly say that I've never prayed for an infection before, but I'm doing it this week.

****Please excuse any typos.  I have thrown this all down with no proof reading so that I can get back to work.****