Getting ready

We’ve had a week with no Dr.’s appointments.  You’d think that would decrease the stress but there is still so much to do.  I’ve spent this week trying to get forms signed by vacationing doctors, deal with Pre-Admissions (they only take messages and return your call within 48 hours) and coordinate my time off with the Human Resources Department at work.  That along with stocking up on food, and just everyday life stuff leaves me a little drained.

But I’ve had great phone calls, cards and messages (Love the Panera Kimberly and Mark!).  It’s such awesome energy thank you all.  And in a few days the Former Boyfriend is going to take me away from the cold so we can regroup before surgery.  Great friends and family, a wonderful husband, I can’t imagine what it would be like to go through all of this without everyone’s support.

Reality bites

I am not a great writer by anyone’s standards and some days I’m not in the mood…today is one of those days.  I’ve had Dr. appointments almost every day this week with tests, scans, blood work and on and on.  The cherry on top was finding out my mastectomy is now scheduled for Valentine’s Day.  You just can’t make this @#%! up.

Brief and to the point, isn’t it?  So i decided to add a little for my girl. She was up at a quarter past six this morning, drove cross town for a follow up with the oncologist then got back home and returned a phone call from late yesterday. They left a message yesterday. They’d scheduled the next step. I told her to change the date but her attitude is why give the cancer cells the extra time to rebound. Yeah she probably has a point. We’ve known for over half a year this was coming but now the cold hard reality has a date on the calendar.

 So to back up here a touch Jeannie started her week with an appointment across town. Surgeon number three, who was the polar opposite of the surgeon on the middle. The first surgeon was great but the issue was more where the surgery would be done and a lot of the people we’d run into. Surgeon number two might well be nicknamed Doctor Darkness he was such an arrogant jerk. Surgeon number three just has it together. She just said let’s take it from the top and ended up probably spending an hour with us. I could be wrong but I think she really just came into the office for us because she’d done surgery early that morning at the neighboring hospital. She was dressed like she just came from the O R (as opposed to how they look when they’re doing normal office hours). And she had that touch that inspires confidence while showing compassion. I’ve said before there should be more women doing this type of work because they know there’s a one in eight chance of them being the patient (as opposed to Doctor Darkness who we think secretly hates women).

Anyway there are lots of positives going on in that she’s in great shape and her blood looked great at this mornings appointment. She does still have neuropathy in her toes and fingers from the chemo. Tomorrow for her day off she gets to jump out of bed at about the same time as today and drive across town in the sub freezing cold again, this time for a new MRI. But her discomfort with the situation surrounding the surgery is handled with the discovery of Doctor number three. By and large her attitude has also been great through this, way better than mine would have been.

Just to illustrate a couple of points with the previous surgeons I sent a note to Doctor Darkness AND his boss speaking to his rotten bedside manner. It was actually a very civil letter suggesting some remedial work in people skills. No response. Not even thanks for stopping by here’s a coupon your next oil change is free. Then she was supposed to have an appointment Wednesday with Doctor number one. She cancelled first thing Monday. But yesterday afternoon the phone rang wondering where she was. The last in a whole series of missteps from that particular health care organization.

Anyway as her immune system builds back up we’ll get a little fun in before she’s having to recuperate yet again.

Trying to find just right

I’m feeling like Goldilocks and the Three Bears lately.  I’m still searching for the kindly doctor who will get me through my pending deconstruction surgery.  Surgeon #1 is kind and talented, but the facilities and staff are all wrong.  So Tuesday the 14^th John and I drove to Surgeon #2’s office with great anticipation, heightened by the fact that he works at the James Cancer Center at OSU.  The office was perfect and so was the staff but Surgeon #2 was out and out frightening … He took my history in a less than pleasant and very hurried fashion.  He anticipated my answers and had very little patience for any questions… The Former Boyfriend and I could not sleep that night after our talk with him. He could possibly be the most talented surgeon in the world. He certainly seemed to have that opinion of himself. But I need to be comfortable with the person who's going to take me through this next step and that was certainly no way to start a relationship.

The next day I called my Oncologist and asked for a new referral. So now Monday morning the 20^th we’re off to meet with Surgeon #3, who we hope will be just right.  She comes highly recommended by the Zangmeister Center. A number of their patients have clearly used her with good results. The folks at Zangmeister have been wonderful so we’re really hoping this doctor and her staff are also.

Milestone

Today I reached a big milestone in my cancer treatment – the last chemotherapy, certainly for now and hopefully forever.  This finished off 4 cycles of adriamycin/cytoxin and 12 cycles of taxol.  I know that it may be a matter of sheer luck, and chemo affects everyone differently.  But I think there are things that can be done to stack the deck and get through it with more good days and fewer bad.  I haven’t missed a day of work in five months of chemo.  I’ve iced my head, hands and feet to minimize nail damage and neuropathy.  I’ve also taken multivitamins approved by the oncologist and the nurses tell me they’ve never seen anyone keep their blood count numbers up throughout treatment like I have.  This is not to say it’s been easy, the treatments have left me tired and too often grouchy (poor Former Boyfriend) so I’m very happy to be done.  My body needs time to heal.

My amazing nurses gave me lots of hugs along with a small gift (pictured below) and when my treatment was finished I got to “ring the bell”.  There is a bell mounted at the south end of the infusion room and patients leaving for the last time get the opportunity to ring the bell signaling the end of treatment.  Everyone in the room celebrated and we should have taken pictures, but in my usual chemo/benadryl brain fog none were.

You would think that this would bring an end to continuous doctor appointments…but that would be wrong.  I have an appointment Friday at 10:00, two appointments on Tuesday the 14^th and three the following week.  Soon I will have a surgery date finalized and after surgery will be headed to Chicago for a month of treatment there.

Paul and Deb will be coming into town this weekend.  Their beautiful Granddaughter Caroline turned two on January the 5^th so the family will be together this weekend in celebration.

And finally, I had an offer to be wined and dined, I was just so happy to be done with chemo I said I didn’t need to go out.  Looking at this list of appointments, maybe I spoke to quick.

One more to go

Well I’m down to one last toxic poison cocktail.  Then hopefully we can close the door on at least this chapter of our journey. Johnny and I were up at 5:00am this morning because our appointment time was half an hour earlier today than it usually is.  And on top of that it was snowing, slowing all of the freeways in town.

We had a wonderful start to New Years Eve.  We finalized plans to see my brother Paul and Sister in law Deb in Florida for a couple of days.  After that we talked with our friends Tiki and Alan in Australia for about 40 minutes.  It’s so sad that such great friends are so far away.  After that the Former Boyfriend grilled lobster tails and we had roasted root vegetables to go with them – and we had a bottle of wine from our Ausie friends that we were going to crack open for midnight.  As I was eating this scrumptious meal a large filling gave way.  I spent the rest of the night sulking and stuffing bee’s wax into the hole to protect my tooth.  Maybe we’ll have the wine for Valentine’s Day.  No telling when my dentist will make it back into the office.  Just what I didn’t want at this point, yet another doctor’s appointment.

Oh well, I’m giving my Former Boyfriend the night off of posting again.  At this moment ( 8:00 pm) he is plowing our driveway and will be plowing out the car lot after that.  Another typical January in Ohio…makes that trip to see Paul and Deb even sweeter. :)

We still have not been able to completely figure out the comment section on the blog – just not enough time in the day.  So thank you all for the prayers, cards, letters and emails, they mean the world to us.