When Lou was changing into his new “protective gear,” I called my sister.
I could barely speak when she answered the phone because the tears were pumping out of me fast and hard. The word “cancer” was just tossed out so causally by the ER doctor, and Lou and I hadn’t even collectively processed what that meant. I knew that Lou was scheduled to see this local urologist in an hour, but that word was already out there.
In usual fashion, my sister was calm and kind. She listened (and somehow understood what I was saying through my tears). It felt good to fall apart on her; I didn’t want to add to Lou’s worries by falling apart on him. But this news was blindsiding, and I needed to admit to someone how truly scared I was. I wasn’t looking for my sister to fix me, or to say something to make me feel better. I just needed to be honest. And I really couldn’t keep it together anymore.
So my amazing sister just cried with me.
She told me she was praying, and she’d be waiting for my call to tell her what the urologist said. She invited Lou and me to impose on her in Michigan for as long as we needed. I always knew we could, but knowing she wanted to create a sense of home for me meant so much.
That was was all I needed her to say.
I managed to pull it together by the time Lou got back to the car. He was wired. The adult diapers were going to take some getting used to, but it did seem to feel better to wear those versus a huge wad of tissue down his pants. (Ugh.)
So we plugged the address for the urology office into our GPS, and drove to this dumpy strip center with a packed parking lot. Lou was understandably edgy, and I didn’t know what to say, so I just kept quiet and prayed. We finally found the right door for the office, and we tumbled into an ugly, grayish waiting room that smelled like funky chicken noodle soup.
Every person in the waiting area was old. Super old. And a few of the people seated in the standard issue vinyl covered armchairs were quite the characters.
There was an enormous man who looked like a crusty farmer seated next to the only two open chairs in the room. He was wearing a pair of faded overalls with only one shoulder strap attached to the breast button. The other strap was just dangling down his back. The T-shirt he had on under the overalls was way too snug for him, so his naked belly was mushrooming out of the sides of his giant overalls.
There was another elderly woman with her pink hair curlers still twisted on top of her head. She looked miserable as she clutched her abdomen. She was wearing a faded pink robe over her pajama top and jeans. It looked like her care-taker/daughter was trying to fill out some paperwork; she’d ask the old lady a question, and the woman would grunt out her answer. I gave the woman a weak smile when she made eye contact with me. She just looked at me with a dead stare, and then she closed her eyes; I saw her wince in pain.
“Where in the heck are we?” I kept asking myself.
This place was incredibly depressing, and looking at all these patients with urology issues made me feel queasy. But Lou didn’t seem sick like these people. He seemed healthy and vibrant in comparison. So as I sat there — trying to breathe out of my mouth to avoid smelling the nasty noodle soup smell — I gave myself permission to consider the idea that Lou really did have a busted blood vessel, and not cancer.
We only waited for about 10 minutes before the nurse called Lou back to see the doctor. The nurse motioned for me to stay in the waiting room; so I did. My heart was beating in my ears, and I felt filmy and tired. All I could do was pray that the ER doctor had been too dismissive, and that there was a better explanation for why Lou was bleeding.
Maybe this specialist had seen a biking related injury like this before. Men bike a lot in Iowa, right?
When Lou came out thirty minutes later, he was ready to leave in a hurry. He quickly signed a piece of paper at the reception desk, and then we were out of there.
When we got in the car, Lou told me this doctor wasn’t sure what was going on, but he figured it was “serious,” and, he thought it “could be cancer.” The exam was brutally painful, and so it was clear that Lou’s prostate was enlarged. So it could be an infection… Or, it could be something else… But this doctor wanted Lou to wait around for another opinion.
But by that time, Lou was ready to check out of “Bubbaville Memorial,”and get as far away from Iowa as he could.
The plan had always been for us to leave Iowa that day — only minus the rush. (I thought maybe we could at least have breakfast with my family, but I didn’t even suggest it.)
Our original plan was to head up to Minnesota; Lou had recruited this terrific couple named Dave and Judy into the MLM company, and they lived in a small town outside of Minneapolis called Waconia. We’d never met Dave and Judy in person, but Lou absolutely loved working with these people over the phone, and they had invited us to stay with them for a few days so Lou could help them build their downline.
Lou called Dave once we were on the highway. Lou seemed like he was angry versus scared by this point, and so in a strong voice, he explained to Dave that he was bleeding. He wasn’t sure of the cause, he explained, but the doctors in Iowa were nuts. (Sorry Iowa…) There had to be a better way to figure out what was going on than all of this guessing!
Dave was awesome on the phone with Lou — as always — and he kept Lou positive. He mentioned that the Mayo Clinic was in Minnesota, and that Lou might get better treatment if we started there. This suggestion was just what we needed to hear. So we locked in the GPS coordinates, and headed straight for Minnesota.
It was going to be another long day, but I think Lou and I were starting to accept that we had to face this health crisis head-on.
Lou, of course, called his sister.
He gave her the run-down of events — and just like my sister, she was a rock star. She told Lou she’d fly up to be with us, or she’d come and get us and take us back to Dallas — whatever we wanted her to do…
