After much anticipation, the "Big Test" day finally arrived.  John was scheduled to check in at 11 a.m. so Matt arrived at 7:45 a.m. to drive us to Fargo.  We wanted to leave plenty of time to get there as we weren't sure what the road conditions would be like following yesterday's snow and wind.  Fortunately we only ran into a couple of icy spots and arrived about 40 minutes early.  It's normally about a 2 to 2 1/2 hour trip down to Fargo.

John got checked in and only waited about 25 minutes to be taken to a room where the usual medical stuff took place--medical questions, blood pressure, temp, start an IV, etc.  A little later the anesthesiologist came in to do his questions and ask if John had any trouble with anesthesia.  He told the doctor he has trouble with nausea and dizziness so they put a patch behind his left ear and gave him several different pills that were suppose to help with those two issues.  The surgeon then came in and explained what the test was going to entail and what they would hopefully learn from it.

Then the waiting began.  The nurse came back in and told us the procedure in front of John was taking much longer than anticipated, so the doctor was almost 2 hours late getting started with him.  While John was in the operating room, Matt and I headed off for something to eat.  This hospital is a brand new facility and offered many wonderful options for a meal.  Matt and I settled for freshly grilled Angus burgers and fries.  We sat and visited in the dining area for a while and then headed back up to the third floor waiting area. Finally they called and said John was back in his room and we could come back and sit with him.  In spite of all the preventive medicines to stem off the nausea and dizziness, they didn't work.  The worst thing was the dizziness.  I thought we were never going to get out of there--whenever John tried standing up he'd get very dizzy.  They tried some other meds through his IV and the dizziness began to subside enough that we were finally able to get John released.  I think we got back home around 8:30 p.m. tonight.  It has been a very long day.  

Now what we were told by the doctor.  The tumor grew another mm over the past six weeks and is now 8 mm in size.  They took four different cell samples for biopsy and we should learn the results from Fargo in about a week.  The doctor said they will also ask for a second opinion and send samples to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN.  The doctor said he looked at all the other organs and everything else looked good.  This growth (tumor) is so very small that if it is cancer, it has been caught at an extremely early stage.  However, at this point the doctor just isn't sure whether it is cancerous or not, but whatever it turns out to be, it can be easily dealt with.  So now we are in a wait and see pattern but both of us feel very good about what we learned today.  Thanks so much to everyone for all the prayers and support you've shown us.