07/06/2012
9:22 I Woke Up after a good deep sleep.
9:31 Left the house. My wife and mother are accompanying me on this trip so they can ask all the questions to the doctor that they want. About a quarter of the way there, I realize that I forgot the pathology report at the house. I told them to just drop me off so that I could get the new patient paperwork started and they could run back and get it, and then get back before I was even done filling out the new patient packet.
9:43 I got to Dr. Laura Brinz’s office and found out that I had to walk around the buildings and walk in through the courtyard, no big deal, the courtyard gives it a nicer feel. Walking in the door here is where it kind of hits of you of the battle you are about to partake in. Past the waiting room area is a large room with about 20 large reclining chairs. In these chairs are about 10 people sitting, with 3 people with IVs dripping their dose of poison, I mean chemo. Don’t worry, that’ll be me in a week or two. I open up my laptop, oh no, NO INTERNET! How am I supposed to live blog, how am I supposed to distract myself, how am I supposed to send and receive emails, GONE, ALL GONE! Hmm, I got paperwork to keep me busy this time around, but I am definitely going to have to fix this before my chemo starts.
9:50 I received the new patient paperwork, and I started filling it out. Simple normal stuff, breezing right through it. My wife and my mother got there while I was half way through the packet. I wasn’t don’t the packet when the nurse running the front desk decided that instead of calling my name and having me get up to see her or walking around to see me, gave my insurance card and driver’s license to another patient to give to me. VERY UNPROFESSIONAL. That just set off alarms in my head. I was irked, but finished filling out the packet. I got the last 4 pages and it was an Affirmative about what to do in the case that the doctor saw that no more treatment would help me. WOW what another wake up call. REALLY? I was reading this for me saying that if I my outlook was bleak enough that I could possibly die in the next 6 months to withhold all treatment, but just make my bare needs were met and that I was comfortable, or the other choice was to give all support to keep me alive even in whatever grave condition I may be in. WOW, no way am I reading something that will determine how I want to die. This right here is just saying if you want to give up, we will allow you to give up. COME ON. I don’t want to give up, never will, that’s why I am coming here. What a SLAP in the face, especially at my age before being staged or knowing to what extent the cancer has made it. Whatever, I blew off those pages and just told the nurse if I ever had to contemplate that, I would do it then, not now. She said that was fine, and it was just standard operating protocol for them to offer their patients the chance of filling out their options then.
10:10 We were lead to the back where I was weighed, blood pressure taken, pulse taken. We were then told that the doctor would be with us shortly that she was in the hospital making her rounds with patients.
10:30 The doctor came in and apologized for being late. She said that while in the hospital she had accidentally discharged the wrong patient as she was learning the new computer system at the hospital as well. She went over with the nurse there and told her to fix it so that she could leave, and then just left and returned to her office and then walked in to the patient room. She assumed I was Craig since I was the only male in the room… She then went over my whole history of how it came about that I was in her office today, so I started off with being sick in February (the beginning of this blog) and continue through to today. She then examined me and felt all my nodes. She said that from what she felt she had an idea of the stage, but that would not be confirmed until I had the PET scan because then she would get a full body image with the cancer regions lighting up. She did tell me that her goal was to CURE this. She said that this cancer make them look good as it has the best reactions to treatment. After the examination, she asked me if there was any questions, I went over a few things that I had discovered by reading everything online, and she confirmed most of it. My mother had a ton of questions to being a normal, upset, caring, loving, overreacting mother, but isn’t that her job, to worry, and what she is supposed to do? (Someone remind me to give her a bonus next mother’s day).
11:00 We were back in the waiting room, and the nurses scheduled a pulmonary test for Monday after my PET scan, a Bone Marrow Biopsy for Tuesday, a General Surgeon appointment for Thursday for port placement and surgery scheduling, and a Echocardiogram for Thursday. Next week is going to be a very busy week.
11:30 We are finally leaving the Doctor’s office, we head over to Houston’s for lunch. We have Chicago-Style Spinach & Artichoke Dip for an appetizer and then I had a Chicken Club Salad which was very good! Food Good! We then return home, and I get my things and get ready to head back over to the office.
I get in the van, and realize I need to deposit two checks that I have sitting in the van from the previous night that I had put in the bank pouch before heading over to my clients the night before. I go to the bank’s drive through, and then to the office. When I get to the office, I scan all the documents that I have from my biopsy and the pathology reports and upload them all to google drive for safe keeping. I then begin working on a few things for work and before I know it it is 3:30 PM and my client is at the office with his old desktop computer to transfer all his documents and web passwords from his old computer to his new computer. The documents transferred over with no issues. He didn’t give me the right password for the antivirus safe and that took a little while to figure out, then he remembered it and I transferred all the password information over. The next problem I ran into was installing adobe reader. For some reason I kept getting a script error everytime I would go install it. I did a good bit of troubleshooting too and could never get past the script error. I then found a Microsoft fix it tool to fix problems with installing programs. I ran this and it found a few corrupted registry entries that it fixed, but I also found the full download for adobe reader and downloaded that. I restarted the computer and installed the full install. During this time, my partner, Jamie, arrived at the office. Jamie got to meet this client who is also open to another business venture, so while I finished up the computer, they talked about the necessary steps needed to start that venture in the next few months. Once I was done with the computer, I brought up both the old and new computers to the front desk. Once we were done conversing, I asked him if he wanted any help bringing the computers down to his car. He said no, he had it, and then he took both computers, one under each arm like they were just small books he was carrying and left with no problems swinging the door open and heading down the hall.
My partner and I caught up on a few things with everything I have scheduled for next week and him wanting to be prepared to take the load off of me when I needed him to when I start not feeling up to working as much as I work now. We discussed a few things, and then he showed me his new climbing equipment. He was telling me that he had to go climb a water tower tomorrow to adjust a radio antenna’s direction. All this was very cool. Something I want to look forward to once I get over this, possibly next summer I can go take the safety classes needed to climb some towers. Why not? Give me something to look forward to!
8:25 I am leaving my office to head on home. The family is hungry and wants to eat. I get home and they are wound up in their Bones episode and by the time its over, no one feels like going out to eat. So its some turkey burgers and hot dogs left over from July 4th. YUMMY, I am easy to please 😉 It just so happens that the Matrix is on TV too, something else to eat up a little more time. I then go on my computer and continue some work I was working on yesterday. I then made all my appointments on my calendar that I received today for next week. I then needed to catch up on today’s happenings, so here I am typing away catching you up. Just about to go relax in a nice warm bath. Feeling a little tired, but just a long day, fun fun… Tomorrow is another day, update you then!
