My name is Lori. For those of you who don't know, my husband Rey had a doctor's appointment a month or so ago. It had been a long time since he'd been to any doctor. They, of course, ran some tests, blood work, and X-rays. Well, they saw something on the X-ray; it was a mass in his lung. Of course, we were stunned. He had to go to Salinas for a biopsy. They went into his lung twice with a needle for a biopsy. It came back as suspicious. We hoped and prayed for the best outcome. The day before his first appointment with his oncologist, he started not feeling well. His left arm was going numb yet throbbed like a toothache deep inside. When we got called back, Dr. Bogey was there. Thank God. He didn't know what to do for him, but he said, while you're here, we'll run some tests and see what we can do to stop the pain. They took him back, weighed him (he was already down to 165 lbs), and put him in a bed and hooked him up with an IV/fluids. Of course, they took blood, did an EKG, urine, etc. Dr. Bogey wanted to do an MRI with contrast, but they couldn't without his blood work for his kidneys to come back. They did the MRI without it, again thank God, because his blood came back with a 10+ for his creatinine. It's supposed to be below a 1. He was in stage 5 renal failure. Not 10 minutes later, Dr. Bogey came in and said multiple myeloma. What?? I looked it up immediately. It was NOT what we expected, nor was it expected that he said there were lesions all over his body on his bones. That was why he was in so much pain.

Right now, we have been relying on the kindness of our friends to take us back and forth to Salinas as our car is doing weird stuff. We know what it'll take to get it fixed, but with him out of work, on disability (of course, we have to wait forever for it to kick in), and I am on FMLA to stay home and take care of him (of course, waiting for doctor's notes and waiting forever to kick in), we are unable to get our car fixed and now we have hospital bills... emergency room, ambulance transfer from Hollister to Salinas, a week in the hospital. Not to mention all the testing. And now, chemo. And then more tests continue... but honestly, right now it's a matter of getting my car back on the road to get him back and forth.

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