We spent all of our free time walking, strolling (Daniel), and exploring. On Monday, we stayed pretty close to the Ronald McDonald House. I don't think we ventured far from the upper east side. One of our first stops involved getting a prescription filled for Daniel. Dr. Kothbauer prescribed Dexamethasone, a steroid, to help relieve the pain in his head. The steroid shrinks inflammation caused by the tumor and creates more of an opening for the cerebral-spinal fluid to flow through. The prescription did make Daniel feel so much better.
I have trouble remembering all we saw and did on the first day. But I do remember we ate dinner at a nice, intimate Italian restaurant. Our Italian waiter was very friendly and asked us where we were from and what had brought us to New York City. We gave him some background information about Daniel, and told him Daniel was scheduled to have a surgery on Thursday. After dinner he brought out 3 Tiramisu desserts - one for each of us - and said it was on the house. We were constantly being blessed by the generosity and compassion of others.
On Tuesday, we took Daniel back to the hospital for pre-op testing. We met a neuro-oncologist that day and a resident in neuro-oncology. Over the following weeks, we would end up spending a great deal of time with both these men and with Dr. Kothbauer. While Dr. Kothbauer was mild-mannered and charming, the neuro-oncologist was more blunt and high-strung. He reminded me of a Harvard college professor (not that I've ever BEEN to Harvard :) ). The neuro-oncology resident orginally came from Romania - he was young and friendly. He performed much of the pre-op testing, while the more experienced doctors interpreted the findings.
The tests regularly performed on Daniel in Portland were a walk in the park compared to the tests performed that day. Gabor, the resident, tested his levels of pressure and pain sensation and every other kind of sensation - from the top of his head, to the bottom of his feet. One of the things they found that stuck out to me, was that Daniel's left hand and fingers were smaller than his right - a discrepancy not large enough to notice unless you were looking for it. Gabor held out Daniel's thumbs and showed us how the left thumb was visibly smaller than the right. This was an indication to him that Daniel's tumor had been growing slowly over the course of many years, maybe even since he was a baby. When I heard this explanation, I wanted to leap in the air for joy - it was one more confirmation to me that Daniel did not have an aggressive cancer.
After pre-op testing was over, we left the hospital, got in a cab and asked the driver to take us down to the lower west side. We were dropped off near Wall Street. We walked and walked all day long, trying to take in as much of the city as we could. We walked to the huge, gaping hole where the Twin Towers had stood. The memory of that tragedy was still fresh in minds and hearts of all who lived there. Plywood walls surrounding the site were covered with letters, flowers, items that belonged to the deceased, messages, pictures, adn lots of American flags. It was a sober and highly touching scene. In utter silence, we looked at it all. Crowds of people were there along with us, and the silence was palpable.
We walked to the edge of the water and looked out at Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. We saw the Brooklyn Bridge, we shopped at Macy's on 34th Street. We walked until we were almost ready to collapse. It was really the first somewhat light-hearted day we'd had in 8 months. The surgery was still two days away so our minds were not very occupied with that, and we had just been shown the first glimpses of light in the midst of such deep darkness. The shadow of death was beginning to recede.
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