Doctors

I’ve been a little “on edge” for the past few days. I attribute it partially to the fact that Ted is still, yes STILL under the weather. Another reason is that I had an appointment with my oncologist this afternoon. Even two and a half years after my colon cancer diagnosis, these appointments can really rattle me. Dr. R, my oncologist, is a great doctor and he has always made me feel good when we talk, however, he IS an oncologist and my visits to him are a constant and continual reminder that I’ve had cancer.

Hopefully the time will come when I don’t think about cancer each and every day. I can be doing something here at home or at work, and suddenly it just POPS into my head. I realize that I’m extremely fortunate, having made it through the surgeries and the chemo successfully, but the thoughts are still always there.

I had to take the afternoon off of school because of my appointment. Last week our regular doctor said he wanted a phone call about Ted this week, so I sat down to make the call right after I got home, since I had a little bit of time before I needed to leave. I told the nurse that he is a little better, but is still coughing, wheezing, short of breath, and goes back and forth between feeling a little better and feeling lousy. She told me that Ted would need to come back in so they made an appointment for him for this afternoon.

In fact, our appointments were at almost the same time and in buildings next door to each other. We drove over together and each went our own ways.

My appointment went GREAT! In fact, my oncologist thinks I’m doing so well that he has now promoted me to the “SIX MONTH” visitation schedule!! Just last summer he moved me to the four month schedule and now another move in the right direction! I was so relieved. He went over some numbers from my blood work and was very pleased, as was I. It was a great visit! Of course it started off well when the phlebotomist was again successful at getting blood out of me. She is so good with my terrible veins. I told Dr. R that she didn’t get paid enough and he laughed at that. He was glad to hear that she was so good at drawing my blood. My next appointment is right before school starts in August!!

When I walked out of the building, there was Ted sitting in the car. Dr. K told him that he needs patience as he gets over this. It just takes time to recover from bronchitis. The doc renewed his antibiotic and then told him that he is NOT to go back to work until Monday, March 3, and he gave Ted a letter stating that. The doc didn’t order blood work or a chest x-ray though, and I thought that would have been a good idea.

As we walked in the door here at home, Alex told us that Ted was to call the nurse at the doctor’s office. Apparently the doctor forgot to fax the prescription in and she needed to know which pharmacy we used. She also told Ted that she was surprised that the doc hadn’t ordered the chest x-ray. After he relayed the phone information to me, I called her back and said that this is what I wanted…the x-ray and blood work. She agreed whole-heartedly and said that she would let the doctor know that I had specifically requested that. Not more than 15 minutes later she called back and said that the orders had been faxed to the hospital and we should go right away so they can get the results in the office tomorrow.

Now…if I had been able to go to the appointment with him, this would have been taken care at the time. We could have just gone from the doctor’s office straight over to the hospital, which is in the same complex, but nooooooooo, things had to be difficult.

Anyway, we went back over there, and he got blood drawn VERY EASILY (I’m so jealous) and then was x-rayed. Hopefully we’ll find out if anything shows up tomorrow.

So enough doctor and medical stuff for a while. Tomorrow it will be back to another chapter of "Cindi and Ted!"