It’s always fun to get a phone call during morning meeting from your oncologist, who you just met yesterday, and who says, “You know last night when we thought a few zaps of radiation of your cancerous lesion would be the way to go?
“Well, after more consultations with other oncologists, it’s now the consensus that we surgically remove the lesion to prevent further spread. This will also probably result in amputation of the second toe.”
“Okay, well that sounds like a party I just canNOT miss, thanks, for the invitation, I shall attend. See you in the OR!” I said.
And then I went back in and read a funny picture book to 16 first/second graders and we laughed and laughed.
So it sunk in around vaccination time seven hours later that my second toe, which arrived in the world at Eastern New Mexico Medical Center in Roswell, is set to depart it at St. Thomas West Hospital in Nashville sometime soon. Which is sort of a weird thing to think, but there it was.
Very happy the toe is making the trip without the rest of me, but yeesh. Being suddenly sucked into Cancer World is a heckuva rush.
[Sorry if I haven’t texted this news to everyone yet; it’s been rather hectic and, well, it’s hard to text someone when your head is buried under the pillows. I’ll get it together soon … orthopedic oncology surgeon scheduling is to get back to me ASAP. Thanks as always for all the love and support!]
Category Archives: Scheduling
36 Hours
36 hours from now, my cholocystectomy should be finished and I should be floating on a cloud of anesthetic and pain killer. Can’t happen soon enough for me. There’s a 10-mm stone in there and I’ve been on a fat-free diet for two months. I’ll keep most of the diet, but hopefully lose all the nausea and occasional pain I’ve been experiencing.
Laparascopic surgery is a wonderful invention. I remember my aunt having this surgery back in the 1970s; she was in the hospital for two weeks. I should be back home by nightfall, as long as the good folks at «John Muir Concord» and my surgeon, «Dr. Mary Cardoza», do things up right.
Usually, this kind of thing would bother me, but I’m ready to get going. No real anxieties or concerns.
We’re still waiting on insurance approval for my trip to the Mayo Clinic. More on that later.
Scheduling Nightmare
Next term doesn’t begin for almost five months but registration is already under way. I’ve registered for most of my classes already, but nobody has been able to explain why SI has decided that it’s not a problem to have at least three (if not more) high-demand courses scheduled on the same day (Thursday) and in some cases in the exact same time slot. As a result, two courses I really need to take are both at the same time, and there’s nothing I can do except decide which of the courses is more important (or more expendable). It’s not as though I’m choosing between a necessary class and an elective, either; both are “highly recommended” LIS courses. It’s absolutely ridiculous.