Tranquil lunch before admittance!

We got to NIH a little before 8am after taking several wrong turns in the Bethesda rush hour traffic. Woody went first to the phlebotomy lab...which he still says is just not very well organized...this morning there were about 50 people there at 8am. After he had his blood work done, then we had about an hour to wait till it was time for him to have his CT scans done...again a long wait for him after he got called back till the actual test was done...he said that the test took about 5 min. After that we went to get salads, prior to him being seen by the doctors in clinic. We ate by this interesting fountain...the sound of running water sort of took the edge off all the voices around us. About the time that we were finished a couple with a little girl stopped at the fountain and the little girl proceeded to remove the stones from the top fountain and stop the water from running down to the lower fountain with her hand. After we ate, we headed upstairs to sign in to see the doctors. It didn't take very long for Dr. Pietro to come in with another doctor. They checked Woody's CT scans and then poked around on Woody to decide which of the harvestable tumors to use. They considered tumors under both arms and also the one on his back. I think that the tumor that they leaned toward was the one under his left arm...which would be hard to get to due to his lack of movement in that arm. It was finally decided to remove the one on his left scapular...which Woody was hoping that they would remove. They also talked about the option of us leaving NIH and going back to have the other "protocol" in Knoxville. We chose to go in the direction that Dr. Sosman at Vanderbilt indicated that we should go...NIH first...so one more try at growing good cells from his tumor and, then, if that fails then to Knoxville for that drug study. After the decision to go forward with surgery, Woody was admitted very quickly. He was in his hospital room by 3pm (Eastern time)...being prepared for surgery tomorrow afternoon. I left him after he had an EKG. And, I will go back in the morning. I took a different shuttle this time since our hotel is in a different part of Bethesda. This one made many stops picking up folk at several businesses, etc. Most of the shuttle riders were heading to a METRO stop to head home after a day at work. Guess this is part of my adventure...experiencing big city life...I'm very glad that I live in a small town! I came back to the hotel and called Woody to let him know that I got here safely and then called Melany and Nathan to let them know about Woody's surgery tomorrow afternoon.

I am now down in the hotel restaurant eating their soup of the day...Italian Wedding Soup...very good. The rest of the evening will be occupied with reading and probably a bit of TV. I've almost finished a book since arriving in Bethesda. Hope that I brought enough reading material! The weather is absolutely beautiful...low humidity, breezy, moderate temperatures...very spring-like.

I'll report tomorrow evening, after I get back from the hospital.