oncologist

365 Days of Carol Anne (Learning to Love Myself)

6 Comments

Day 67

Dig my new look? *laughs* Sorry about the notebook page but I took my shower before taking my photo today and I’m just not comfortable showing you my uncovered head just yet. I’m not sure I ever will. I promised you at least a photo a day and I promised me that I’d keep documenting this process so it’s a notebook page tonight.

I actually had a big day today. I changed oncologists. Let me start by saying that my first oncologist wasn’t a bad doctor and he didn’t do anything wrong. He and I just didn’t gel. Last week I contacted my neurosurgeon’s nurse and asked if they’d chosen the first oncologist for me. I was fully prepared to stick it out if they had because I have all the faith in the world in them. They hadn’t and so they suggested two other doctors, both women. This morning I got an e-mail from Elizabeth, Dr. Bussey’s nurse informing me that they’d spoken to Dr. Hughes and that all I had to do was call the radiation oncology department and ask to change doctors and make an appointment with Dr. Hughes. I feel so relieved. I have an appointment to meet her next week.

You know I felt guilty and uneasy changing doctors, like I was ratting the first guy out but in the end I can feel it my gut that I made the right decision. Like my friend Angel so wisely wrote today, “if it’s a bad fit with a doctor, you won’t get anywhere–fast.”

365 Days of Carol Anne (Learning to Love Myself)

6 Comments

Day 61

Thank you everyone for your kind words yesterday. They are very much appreciated. Unfortunately I’m back with worse news tonight. I had an appointment with the Plastic Surgeon this morning. She’s not happy with how the last wound is healing so I have to have another surgery, a skin graft. She’s going to take skin from my leg and cover up the last wound. It’s about an hour-long surgery. It’s an outpatient procedure but I’ll have to be asleep, which worries me. There are whole days I don’t remember from my first trip to the hospital. I don’t want that to happen again.

I’m ashamed to admit it but I fell apart at the seems in the Plastic Surgeon’s office. She had left the room to get some dressing for my head so I could wrap up and go home and I just lost it. I sobbed. The nurse came in to bring us the dressing so Chuck could get me set to go home and I scared her right out of the room. Chuck was so upset he called off work so that I wouldn’t be home alone all day or have to go to my mother’s house for the day.

On the way home the Oncologist’s office called. As it turns out I’m not having a PET scan. Basal cell cancer is not detectable in a PET scan so now I’m scheduled for a needle biopsy on Friday. I don’t know what’s worse the less invasive but radiation filled PET scan or the more invasive but no radiation involved biopsy.

Chuck’s a good egg. He stayed home from work and stopped to buy me soft pretzels and an Amazon fruit smoothie on the way home. We took the kitties out on their leashes for an hour-long walk and relaxed together. I don’t know what I’d do without him. He’s my hero, my caretaker, my best friend, my soulmate, my everything. If you see him around give him a hug. He’s been through a lot too.

Cuppy & Snowy Out For a Walk

Snowy

365 Days of Carol Anne (Learning to Love Myself)

Leave a Comment

Day 56


Proof that I'm a dork

Good evening girls and boys. Happy Friday! I don’t have much to report tonight. I didn’t do much today and the hubs worked tonight so it was just me and the kitties for most of the night. Snowy joined me on the couch for a short while.

I missed the hubs but it was a nice quiet day before a week full of doctor’s appointments and tomorrow’s (pregnancy) blood test. *laughs* Don’t get excited. I have to have one to rule pregnancy out before my radiation treatments start.

My fellow couch dweller

365 Days of Carol Anne (Learning to Love Myself)

4 Comments

Day 55

In honor of the return of America’s Next Top Model you get two photos tonight. The first is my regular photo the second is me trying to find the light. *falls on floor laughing* Yep! That’s me putting the I in delusional for sure. *laughs*

All kidding aside. I do have news tonight. As it turns out there was a mistake on the calendar the technician gave me. My radiation treatments actually begin in early March as opposed to early April. I’d be lying to you if I told you that I wasn’t freaked out by this turn of events. I thought I’d have more time to prepare emotionally. On the bright side, God willing I’ll be done with radiation treatments by May. I have an appointment with the plastic surgeon next week and as long as she gives her okay treatments will begin shortly thereafter.

365 Days of Carol Anne (Learning to Love Myself)

5 Comments

Day 38

Dig my pretty new scarf! Isn't it nice?


It’s been a long exhausting day. I had my first appointment with the oncologist this afternoon. It was a long scary appointment. The day started off rough and so my already frayed nerves were pretty much unraveled when I arrived at Booth Radiology only to find out that the films I needed to bring with me to the appointment were not ready. According to the girl at the desk the machine was broken on Friday and so nothing got done. Rather than lose it at her I just walked out.

Seriously. They have you leave your information along with a phone number you can be reached at on the answering machine. In my message I asked to pick up my films on Monday morning. If they couldn’t provide the films in the 48 hour time frame they request they should have at least called to let me know ahead of time. Imagine my surprise when I stopped there on my way to the oncologist’s office and the films weren’t there. To say that this was my undoing would be an understatement.

We arrived at the CyberKnife center, which is located down a dead end road (totally thought we were lost) and I filled out all the required paperwork. And then we waited. And waited. Oh and we waited some more. Finally the nurse came out and ushered us into a consultation room where she took my medical history, which she already had. I know this because she corrected me when I forgot that my father’s last bout with skin cancer was in fact melanoma. *shakes head* I think she may have been killing time until the doctor was free to see me. After taking my medical history she offered us the opportunity to sit in the consultation room to continue waiting or go back out in to the waiting room to continue waiting. I opted to stay in the consultation room rather than go backwards in the waiting process.

As it turns out they didn’t have the last progress report from the plastic surgeon so we waited some more while they had the plastic surgeon’s office fax that over. The nurse moved us into the exam room where we waited some more. When he finally arrived he asked us to tell him the story up until this point and then started to discuss the side effects and possible risks associated with radiation treatments. He examined my head and scheduled me for a Sim Appointment next Friday. At the Sim Appointment they’ll map out my head and create a face mask to hold my head still during radiation treatments. *shudder* The nurse told me they can cut the eyes out if I’m claustrophobic. *laughs* You’re going to cover my head in a full mask designed to immobilize my head while you shoot radiation in to my head and you think that cutting the eyes out will make it a less claustrophobic experience? I don’t think so, but okay. *shakes head*

Before the Sim Appointment I need to have another CAT scan, this time of my neck, to check to see if the cancer has spread to any lymph nodes. And OMG! I have to have a pregnancy test. After the Sim appointment they’ll map out a plan for my radiation treatments and after a few weeks my treatments will begin. The treatments will be 5 days a week for 6 weeks. There are no treatments on weekends or holidays.

Tomorrow I’ll tell you about the pretty wig Martino found for me today.

Love,

~ Carol Anne