MichaelZullo.com

At least our life is a lot like a rollercoaster, totally not like a yummy box of chocolates like Forrest Gump would have you believe ;o)

So we got back from our first family trip to DC a week ago. I know I should have written an update sooner but I came down with the flu of all things! Our trip went well. Mikey did really well on the plane rides. He is actually now obsessed with planes so much that as soon as he hears one he stops what he’s doing, looks up to the sky to find it, once he finds it he begins to wave and saye Nye Nye Mane. It’s the cutest thing ever! We even took him to the Air and Space Museum so he could get his fill of planes and as soon as we walked in up that arm went!

As for the real reason we were in DC, the trip to NIH was amazing. It’s like a college campus and is HUGE!!!!! But its beautiful and filled with so many smart individuals. They were on the ball over there. Every test that Gary was due he arrived to the location we were told to go to and they knew of him. Totally unlike any hospital we’ve ever gone to for tests. They managed to get 34 vials of blood from him, and did a bone marrow biopsy and CT scan. We finally heard back the results of his tests last night and its actually not the good news we were hoping for. Let me preface this with, when we met with the team last week the doc told us that he was pretty sure that whatever this is, it’ll blow over. So back to the results, he called last night and told Gary that he has a very rare condition called Peripheral T-Cell Lymphoma. What’s weird is his oncologist at home actually originally diagnosed him with that condition BUT by the time we had driven home from that appointment he called us to tell us that he talked to a collegue and they agreed that this couldn’t be it because he has NO symptoms. Well the folks at NIH had 3 different experts, the best in the nation, look at Gary’s bone marrow and all three came up with the same diagnosis. The good thing is the prognosis is good. They caught it super early, before he showed any symptoms. Usually people start showing symptoms within a year but he’s gone 2+ years. And because of that the doctor doesn’t want to wait any longer to start treatment. He wants to start chemo ASAP. So just as we are ending the rollercoaster ride that was torticollis we now hop on a new ride. It won’t be easy but we are gonna kick this lymphoma in th a$$!!!!!