Punch Misfire

Posted by Roie R. Black on Thu 08 December 2016

Well, two days ago, Cheryl and I headed out to Houston for the standard three-month visit to M.D. Anderson. Two days of poking, delivering "vitals" filling out forms, You know, life as a patient:

BTW! It finally occurred to me why doctors call their clients "patients" They have to be to sit around waiting for the doctors to show up!

We left for Houston after my last class Tuesday evening. I hurried home to meet Cheryl who as working late at her client's site. We both got home, fed the cat, got the car loaded and were out the door at 8:05pm! We only stopped twice on this trip. Once for gas in Austin, and once in La Grange for a pit-stop and snack, since i missed dinner. We got to La Grange about 9:15, expecting our favorite Kolachie shop to be open. They must be on Winter hours, because they were closed. So we made do with a McDonalds across the street. (Hamburgers were no match for Kolachies!)

We rolled into the parking lot at our Houston La Quinta at 10:55 (must be a record of some sort!)

Test Day

Wednesday, in addition to being Pearl Harbour Day, was a day full of tests.

Audiology

First up was a visit with the Hearing Clinic where I had a very complete hearing test. This test was scheduled for 7:30, and we were called in one minute early! Nice start!

The only problem with this visit is that I do not know who decided I needed this visit, since Dr Scholl is doing the same tests in Austin. After the test, we saw the real ear doctor who scraped some debris out of my good ear, and he declared that there was not much he could do for me. Unless there was something going on, he did not think he needed to see me again

We were done with Audiology in about 40 minutes.

Vampire Feeding

As usual, the vampires needed blood, so we walked back across the building to the bat-cave. They had a new electronic sign-in system that scans your write-band to figure out who you are, then posts an estimate of your waiting time on a screen. My name did not even come up before I was called back. Thw poke went well, and that meeting was over quickly!

Of course, the next visit was all the way across the building again! At least we were keeping warm by walking. Problem was that Cheryl's two-month old knee is not fully healed yet, and it started hurting her as we walked all over.

Chest X-Ray

Next up was a Chest X-Ray. We were early for that by about an hour, but we wandered across the building anyway. The whole place was cold, so we were looking for a warm waiting area and this one seemed OK. After checking in, we sat down and almost immediately, they called me in! The X-Ray took about two minutes and we were done!

CT-Scan

The final test of the day needed me to check in about 2:40pm, and I could not eat for three hours before that. So, we headed to the cafeteria for a bit of lunch. I had pudding and a Boost nutrition drink so I would not have much to get rid of for the test. We finished lunch and had still had time to kill, so we went hunting for another warm waiting area.

We decided to try waiting in the "Gazebo" area on the way to the next appointment. We sat there until about 20 minutes before we needed to be in the diagnostic imaging area

All of those fast in-and-out meetings screeched to a halt here. We heard them announce that appointments were behind at least an hour. My real scheduled time was over an hour away, so it looked like we would be here for quite a while.

I actually ended up dozing off for about an hour of that, then they called me in for the IV setup.

As usual, I kidded around with this nurse, asking her if she had done thing before. She chuckled (only about a zillion times) and asked if I had a preference for where the IV went. I pointed to her arm, and told her any of those would be fine.

She poked around and finally decided I had a good vein on my left arm. (Hey, they are all good to me!). She stuck it in, and checked it twice after I told her about my exploding arm incident a few visits ago. She declared the IV in good shape and sent me back out to wait some more.

Well, it seems the back-up was clearing up, and they called my name not too long after the original scheduled time.

Of course, they shoved me into a small, cold, room and made me wait for over a half-hour with nothing to read, or do, until the machine opened up.

The technician apparently never knew we called the machine the "donut" (Must be a new kid). Any way, the actual CT technician took me into the room with the big donut. I commented that they really needed to change up the picture on the ceiling. I knew every leaf on that dogwood tree they had there.

I also told her about my exploding arm incident. That made me nervous each time I get one of these tests. She decided to monitor the IV as the machine kicked in the "contrast". She was watching for any bulges in my arm or the tube leading to the needle to make sure the contrast flowed smoothly in. I felt it go in as a hot flush, and everything went fine. There was some aching as it went in, but no real pain.

Then she said the standard "Here we go" and she left the room! What is with these people? "Here I go" would be much more accurate!

The test was over quickly and I was done for the day.

Mexican Food!

We left the hospital and braved rush-hour traffic to drive up north to Cheryl's high-school friend Sharon's house. I was greeted by "Little Bits" the wired terrier, who recognized me right away. Cheryl and Sharon set up to work on their class-reunion website, something Cheryl is setting up with help from my classmate, Judy Hughes, who put a very nice site together for my class. They worked on tat until Dan came home from work, then we all headed off for dinner at a Mexican restaraunt for a change No Olive Garden this trip.

The dinner was great, especially after eating practically nothing all day. We visited a bit more, then headed back to La Quinta.

Results Day

The big meeting was early Thursday morning. Normally Dr. Lai has surgery in the morning, so we meet in the afternoon, but things got changed up this time. We were the first appointment of the day, and only sat waiting for a half hour before we were called in to the evil smaller individual waiting room.

We sat there for another 20 minutes, then Dr. Garcia came in. He asked the usual "How am I doing" question, and I gave him the usual "That is for you to know, and me to find out" reply. He did not jump right in and say something about the test, which was not a good sign. Instead, he started looking me over and asking questions about pain, eating and swallowing. Finally, he said there was an "enhancement" on the CT scan in the area near the top of my "flap". That flap is the skin they put in to cover the surgery they did over two years ago, when I lost my left eye!

He said they were going to look over the area inside my nose with that silly nose probe scope, then he left.

We sat there with that disconcerting news. We both sat there stewing for over a half-hour, wondering, and fearing, what this meant.

That was a miserable time. Was the cancer back? Why would it show up in new skin from an area that had no cancer in it? WTFO? (That is Air Force pilot talk, loop it up if needed!)

Anyway we were suddenly not happy at all with this visit, and we sat there waiting. And Waiting, and waiting some more.

Finally, Dr. Lai came in with Dr. Garcia:

"How are you doing?"

"Well much better before I came in here!"

"Why is that?"

I pointed to Dr. Garcia, and said "His fault!"

"Oh, I see. Well, I cannot believe that that enhancement is anything going in in that flap. There is no reason for anything to be going on there."

Slight relief could be felt in both Cheryl and me!

I told him he was dressed nicely. He always wears a nice suit for patient visits. "Except for that tie!" which had a bunch of fish on it. He proceeded to look himself over in the mirror, and asked what was wrong with the fish. (They were cartoon character fish!) Cheryl decided he was keeping up with the fish theme in the waiting area.

He proceeded to set me up for the nose probe. He rammed that tube up about six miles into my nose and declared:

"Everything looks great in here, nothing in th cranial cavity, it all looks fine".

He called Dr. Gargia over to look.

"See It is all pink and healthy. No discolorations, everything looks fine."

When he took that probe out of my nose I asked him if I could use that line in school.

"What line?"

"The one about 'nothing in the cranial cavity'!" He chuckled and said he wondered if I heard that. (I will have to ask Dr. Scholl if that is a standard term for some part of the sinus area.)

Finally, Dr. Lai declared me good to go for another three months. But he said he wanted the tests to be "kept close", just in case.

Great, good news with a disclaimer!

Mispunch

So, our M.D. Anderson visit ended with another ticket punched for another three months. Normally, after a year out, I should move to four-month visits, but we are sticking with three monthas for now. I get to be relieved, with a slight case of jitters in case this really was something to deal with. Twice now, the CT scan has failed to show anything when cancer was actually active. I am not willing to believe that this enhancement is just "mucus in the nasal area". But I have no other symptoms, and all I can do is wait it out.

Cheryl and I drove back home with mixed feelings. Releif that we got good news, but shaken by the actual findings.

We did stop at Microcenter, but I could not get excited about anything I saw, and left with no new toys! "Shocking" was Cheryl's comment at that. We also stopped at Dairy Queen and did celebrate with lunch and a Blizzard.

Then we were home with our kitty, and back to attempting to live a normal life.

"Damn the donuts, full speed ahead". To paraphrase a WWII submarine commander!

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tags: Cancer