A Few More Delays

(Cartoon found at: http://xkcd.com/933/ - thanks to Brother Kev. for the find)

Today my mom and I went to meet the radiation oncologist, Dr. Wangchungtonight, and the medical (chemo) oncologist, who shall not earn a name.

To back up, the sole reason that I'm now finding a new radiation oncologist is that radiation needs to be given 5 days a week for 6 weeks. Mayo is amazing and I'm sure that they would do an amazing job. However, I wanted to find someone local that they recommended, so I wouldn't have to move to Rochester for 6 weeks. Dr, Wangchungtonight was the only guy that they could think of in the cities. Unfortunately, he's in an (otherwise) dumpy clinic in northern Maplewood, next to a mall. I have become snobbish in my health care providers, certainly.

Dr. W. seems like a great and patient guy and I do feel confident that he can give me the kind of care that I need. He wants to make sure that there isn't any other cancer hiding anywhere, so he wants to give me a full-body PET-CT (with contrast) tomorrow. Compared to and MRI, A CT scan is more like the magic trick where the magician takes a hula hoop and passes it around the body of a floating assistant to prove that there arent' any wires being used. Though this hula hoop is more like the size of a truck inner tube, and costs millions of dollars. A CT scan for the patient) is quiet, painless, simple, and non claustrophobic. The MRI scan is incredibly noisy (earplugs are needed) and you are stuffed into a torpedo tube that (for me) is smaller than the diameter of my shoulders. I'm not normally claustrophobic, but I need to be medicated with valium in order to get through a full-body MRI.

I had a bad reaction to the CT contrast dye that they used a few years ago. This allows them to see everything much more clearly, but it is useless if the patient dies of anaphylactic shock on the exam table. Clearly I haven't yet, but my reaction last time scared them enough that they said: "never let anyone give you CT contrast again." And so I haven't. Apparently, PET-CT is different enough that the contrast dye is different. I'm not really clear on what the difference is between a CT and a PET-CT.

So we'll do that tomorrow. If I break out in hives and have a hard time breathing, they'll pull the plug and we'll try again another day without contrast.

Today was supposed to be (or at least I thought) my radiation planning session. This was supposed to be a 3 hours appointment where I meet with the Radiation Oncologist and get scanned in preparation for the actual radiation. The doc now wants to do the scan first, make sure there is no more cancer  (a good idea) and then from there create his plan of where he will irradiate, using the CT as his template.

So the current schedule is that I'll have the Pet-CT tomorrow (Thursday) and meet with Dr. Wangchungtonight on Tuesday for the radiation planning session (a 3-hour appointment where they will permanently tattoo me with small dots on my abdomen so that the radiation can line up exactly every time. It takes Dr. W. about a week to get his radiation plan together, so this now means that I'll start radiation a week from Tuesday, or on the 23rd of August. I am hoping that these delays (that I can't seem to find any way to bypass) will not mean that the cancer spreads further.

I also met with the medical oncologist (the guy that gives the chemo drugs) today. This guy I did not like, and I found the combination of his pointless chattiness, hard-of-hearing-ness and ineptitude with computer-based ordering and records to be frustrating. He had on a ridiculously shiny striped short, and small black, thick-rimmed reading glasses that looked like miniature Harry Potter glasses. He also hit one of my major pet peeves with doctors: the question of "so why am I seeing you today?" Because he doesn't actually know. Because he hasn't cracked open the records.

On the other end of the spectrum, Dr. Wangchungtonight recited my *entire relevant medical history from memory*, without looking at a single note. And this is a very long list, at this point. He told it like a story. I was stunned. There were things that *I'd* forgotten, even. He had the order down, names, dates, diagnoses, outcomes, everything. I feel good that if you tell Dr. W. something, he will remember it later.
The medical oncologist that I met with today -- that I have decided I will *not* be working with -- will not be appearing enough in this narrative to earn a name.

It looks like Chemo and Radiation will begin on that same (5-hour) day, 8/23. This will be nearly a month after the recurrence was diagnosed , and I am painfully aware of the clock ticking away.