Every three months I have to do two things. The first is let a tech stick a needle into my veins and draw out a litre or two of blood. The second is to have a follow-up visit with either my Surgeon or Oncologist. This month it was with the oncologist, and would be my first visit to see her since I had finished treatment earlier in the year.
So Monday, August 15th I take all of 15 minutes to let a tech take my blood. It's a nice day and frankly I'm in no rush to return to work so I decide to take the bus back. Turns out an envelope with a 'suspicious powder' shows up in the mail drop-box of our local Utility office. Police block off the main roads, firefighters and the hazmat teams converge on this potential threat. Although nothing ever came of it, my bus was delayed, re-routed by way of Omaha I think and I took an hour longer to return to work. Got there just in time for lunch.
So this Event-that-was-not-and-event foreshadowed my visit two days later to see my Oncologist. I was nervous, sure, as blood will tell the tale, I just don't want it telling any tall tales at this point in my life. The old familiarity quickly re-asserted itself after I picked up my paperwork. The ladies at reception greeting me by name, after not seeing me for months. I walked up to the second floor, confident and not unduly concerned, and sat in front of the computer. There's an assessment form each patient enters into a computer whenever they receive treatment or visit their doctor at the Cancer Centre. A scale of 0 to 10 is used to assess various aspects of your physical and emotional health, with zero being 'not a problem' to ten being 'worst.problem.ever'. Even under treatment I tended to score my self-assessment low, not because of false modesty, I truly believed and felt OK for the most part. Today I would indicate a positive score only on the anxiety aspect of the visit (I am visiting a chemo doctor after six months after all).
Now the form is filled and printed, my notification pager firmly attached to my belt, all I have to do is wait to be called in. And pee, apparently my anxiety score should be rated +1 higher than indicated, or maybe it was the coffee, sure it was the coffee.... Fortunately the pager does not go off while I am preoccupied, and a short time later I'm in the exam room.
It's a curious thing, you are given an appointment card stating a time to meet with your doctor months in advance. You arrive before the appointed time, and wait. Your appointment time eventually comes along, sometimes you are still waiting. You eventually receive the summons and are ushered into the exam room, where you wait for the Doctor to show up. I hate waiting. I have palm pilots with activities, MP3/video players, wifi connections but no, I decided to fidget and pace the little exam room. Sit down and readjust my position. Take off my jacket. Readjust my jacket. Pick my jacket off the floor...oops say wasn't there coffee in that cup a second ago, and why is the floor brown? OK, here's a new way to pass the time: spill coffee on the floor of the exam room! Paper towels to mop up (that was a small coffee?!) more paper towels to wash the floor, say doesn't this part of the floor look shiner than the part beside it...hmmm it's a hospital what could *possibly* be on the floor of hospital in an exam room. So much for my distraction. Fortunately my doctor walks in before I decided to get a mop and floor polisher to further entertain my boredom.
Up on the exam table now, the the paper protector shields me from whatever horrible creepy crawlies inhabit the vinyl covering of the exam table. I guess this is how fish feel when they are about to be wrapped up...or gutted. Still the exam proceeds along familiar lines (and I do mean 'familiar'!). Everything checks out. The doctor is really pleased, she qualifies the 5 years 25% statistic with a comment that filled me with optimism: she had a 'good feeling' about me and my recovery.
My visit with the Oncologist has been routine to the point of being mundane. I have no worries. I do however have a CT exam scheduled for September 8th, another Port Flush for September7th, and in a couple of days, another follow-up visit with the surgeon who did my Liver resection last year. All of this is 'routine', I guess the lessons about 'my new normal' are firmly entrenched. Embrace and accept the change, it's going to happen anyway!
The good news continued: I got my first new desktop PC in close to six years: an i5-2500K with 16GB of RAM. It's awesome. It runs Linux, that's awesome to the power of awesome. Time to put it to good work and write more in my blog! I'm sure everyone wants to hear about the fun one can have while undergoing a Cat Scan!
