06/22/2012
The cough syrup did not help me sleep this time. I was sweating really bad throughout the night. I then also smelled a weird smell from my sweating which I could only think of as the iodine from the CT Scan the day before.
I called the intern office to see when I could pick up the additional bloodwork form so that I could go get the last bloodwork needed by the anesthesiologist for clearance for surgery. While on the phone with the assistant they told me then that my appointment was moved up to 11:15am from 2pm. I was about to go into the office and since I only had 40 minutes before I would have to head to the hospital, I called up my business partner instead and explained to him what was going on. I told my partner, Jamie, that I had some bad news. At first he thought that the monthly rent went up or that we had to move out of the office because the building management was looking to renew the leases and we were not in the position to renew just yet and he just had returned from being out of town. I told him it was not that and that there it was possible that I had some form of Lyphoma and that we would have to prepare for me missing some time for my biopsy and then some more time for my treatment. Jamie said that he would talk to his other contracts he was working for time off as needed to cover my position when needed for Hands Free Help Technologies. We would go into further details this upcoming weekend and scheduled to meet at the office on Saturday and possibly Sunday.
I then went to the Hospital at 10:30 hoping the bloodwork paperwork would be ready to go so that I could get the bloodwork done before the appointment, but the Doctor didn’t want me to go get the bloodwork until he saw me first. I then was seen at 11:15 and had an EKG done in the office. I then saw the doctor who took my blood pressure and listened to my breathing which sounded much better than the day before. He then saw me back in his office where I blew a 240 again for peak flow meter. He then gave me the list of additional bloodwork to go get that done. He said that my EKG was just fine, he was going to fax the EKG, the Xray and CT Scan results to my Ear Nose and Throat Doctor along with my letter of clearance for the surgery. He said that it would take 3-4 days to get the results back from the biopsy following the surgery and then I would see the oncologist to proceed with a method of treatment. He said that he wanted to see me again in a month, but not within 14 days of any chemo treatment as the office would not be a safe place for my immune system after chemo. I got the name, it was Dr. Thomas Cosgriff who is a Hematology-Oncology, a doctor that treats blood cancers. He is also part of the MD Anderson network here at the local East Jefferson General Hospital (EJGH). I then checked out and went to get my bloodwork. I saw the same nurse that I saw the day before, but another nurse tried to withdraw blood with a butterfly needle. She could not get a good enough bloodflow to even fill one tube. The lady that had me the day before then took over and went a little further down my right arm and got three tubes of blood.
I then left the hospital and headed back to my office to catch up on a day and a half to two day’s work. I had mentioned the findings to two clients, and then a client called me about problems with some toner. I traveled to the client and delivered some new toner and then talked to the client about everything I was going to undergo, so if they couldn’t get in touch with me, they would be able to talk to my business partner or my wife. This would be the same talk that I would have with most if not all my clients before my biopsy on Wednesday.
A long 3 day week, and the beginning of a long weekend.
