February 12th

Dad & Mom went down to St. George to visit with their friends the Jensen's and attend the wedding of one of their returned missionaries. Sunday Dad woke up with a lump under his chin. They went to the doctor and he gave him a strong antibiotic saying it could be a blocked gland duct caused by a possible stone. Then the next weekend on February 20th he woke up with a lump on the other side of his neck under his chin. The doctor had told them that if it had moved to the other side he would need to see him immediately. So both felt he needed to go get it checked but it was Sunday so they had to wait until Monday to take him in. Monday February 21st he had a CT scan to check out the lump and the doctor tried to catch them to get more scans but they'd already left. They scheduled to do more scans and tests at 7 am the next morning Tuesday February 22nd, which was a big indication of the priority and severity of his results. They received a call early Wednesday morning that due to his test results he was to be admitted to the LDS hospital straight away because they had determined it was cancer. They were still unsure of the specific type and were going to perform more tests when he came in. They thought it was either Acute Lymphatic Leukemia or Lymphoma. After spinal taps and blood tests they ruled those out and he was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia which needed to be treated aggressively so was told he needed to do in-patient treatment for 1 month there at LDS Hospital.