“Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.”

On Tuesday morning, July 3, right around 11 a.m., M and I went to Texas Med Clinic to do the blood draw for the PSA, and to get the orders for the nuclear, whole body bone scan. Dr. Scalzi had also made an appointment for us with a urologist for Tuesday, July 10, and we were to pick up that information, as well. M was especially tired and achy that morning. It wasn’t just his side that hurt, but between his shoulder blades, too. M and I are alike in that we both carry stress in our shoulders, so this mid-back/between the shoulders pain wasn’t a surprise, but it made the stabbing side pain and the generalized aching that much worse.

We arrived at the clinic, and between the bone scan order, the information on the urology appointment, and the blood draw, the front desk was a little confused. M was running low on patience, and in obvious discomfort. The young lady at the front desk, helpfully, went and got the doctor. After a moment, Dr. Scalzi called us back to an exam room.

Dr. Scalzi is cherubic: she’s short, she’s “fluffy” as they call it around here, and she has a sweet face and kind demeanor. If you’re going to get shitty news, this is the lady you want to get the shitty news from. She only gave us semi-shitty news on this particular day; the really shitty news would come on July 4, and I anticipate the shittiest of news is still a few days off. But on that day, in that exam room, Dr. Scalzi spent 20 minutes or more with us, explaining the results of the blood test and their interplay with the CT scan results. Yes, she had done this in short form the night before on our drive home from the imaging center. But to sit in a room with her, face to face, and have her spell it out and let us ask questions was both comforting and helpful. She said she suspected a possible prostate issue, hence the PSA test, and the bone scan would tell us more about the irregularities the CT scan picked up, as well as the elevated alkaline phosphatate levels detected in the blood test. She compared the whole process to being a detective working a crime. The way to solve the crime was to examine the crime scene, and then work to eliminate suspects.

She made it clear that she was not delivering, nor could she deliver, any kind of diagnosis, but in the face of the evidence presented so far, prostate cancer was a real possibility. “Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst,” she said.

Dr. Scalzi left the room to get a nurse to do the blood draw for the PSA test. I got on my phone and called the imaging center to make an appointment for a bone scan that same day. M’s appointment was set for 2 p.m. to get an injection of radioactive material. At 5 p.m., the actual bone scan would be done.

Dr. Scalzi returned a short time later to inform us that the lab that had done the blood work on M the night before, and had said they needed a sample of frozen blood to do the PSA test, actually didn’t need the frozen blood at all. They could use the blood from the existing sample.Win!

It is worth noting that Dr. Scalzi and Texas Med Clinic did not charge us for this visit.

When we got back to the house a little after noon, M laid down to rest. He got up and left for the injection and the bone scan around 1:15 p.m. He was back at around 7 p.m. I asked him if we could go in the closet, close the door and leave the lights off. I wanted to see if he glowed. He laughed a little, but he was so tired. Funny enough, we watched a few episodes of a Netflix series called “GLOW” that night. That particular coincidence didn’t even occur to me until just now. Huh. GLOW…it’s a good show, funny. It’s worth a watch.