Admitted to the hospital - St. Joseph's Children's

I called Dr. Tebbi’s office first thing in the morning and got Jordan an appointment at 1:30 pm.

Dr. Tebbi is the Director of Oncology at St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital in Tampa, Florida.

We arrived for her appointment and Dr. Tung Wynn saw us. He explained that the MRI showed these lesions (tumors) along Jordan’s spine and that he wanted to conduct further tests. Up until this point, no one had drawn any blood on Jordan. He needed blood tests too.

Dr. Wynn admitted Jordan to the hospital that afternoon. She was put on the second floor of the main Children’s Hospital where they normally have surgery patients. There was no space on the Pediatric Oncology floor that day.

This was Jordan’s first night in the hospital. Around 11pm, they took her down stairs to Radiology for a Cat Scan (CT) and a full MRI. She had to drink two glasses of Contrast prior to the CT to light up her body for the scan. Once she got down stairs she had to drink a third glass of Contrast and also get an injection of Contrast in her IV.

The CT only took about 15 minutes and she was moved to the MRI. The MRI was very tough for her because it was a full body MRI and it took about 2 hours. She had to lie perfectly still, on her back in the MRI machine. She received another IV dose of Contrast for the MRI. They placed these two contraptions over her face and neck for the MRI. During the scan, she became very hot. This was a normal reaction to the Contrast and the MRI. The nurse told us it was like a microwave. I didn’t know what to do with that information, so I didn’t make any comment. She just told Jordan it would feel like a microwave, seemed a little insensitive, but Jordan didn’t show any reaction.

During the test, I stayed in the room almost the entire time. I stepped out for a couple of minutes to use the restroom. On my way back to the room, the nurse was looking at her computer that was doing the MRI and she said to me “how long has you daughter had cancer?” I told her that Jordan hadn’t been diagnosed with anything yet. I think she realized her slip at that point and she didn’t make any further comments about her MRI.

After the MRI was complete, Jordan was taken back to her room.