High ho, High ho, it's back to the Doctor we Go!

The receptionist checks the schedule. "Didn't we cancel your appointment?" I tell her that Nurse Dee called me and told me to keep the appointment. She asks again for my name, my insurance card, my address, my phone, my social security number. "I don't know what happened, but somebody took you off the schedule. Don't worry, we'll get you back in."

We've gotten spoiled. Up until today, the waiting has been minimal. We even left our books in the car, figuring that we wouldn't need them. Wrong! Dr. B comes out in about 20 minutes, calls for another patient, and comes to us and apologizes. "I'm so sorry for the delay, I'll see you right after this lady."

Dayton hates waiting. But I keep telling him, "f the test results were bad, we would have heard on Tuesday."

Finally Nurse Selinda calls me, and we follow her. Again I am weighed, then we are shown into another small room. The chairs aren't cushioned, and I'm uncomfortable.

Dr. B finally arrives, shakes Dayton's hand, again apologizes for the delay. "My nurse is off all this week, and things aren't running as smoothly as usual." He opens my chart. "Now, you are going to schedule a CT and chest x-ray, right?"

My heart falls. He didn't get the message that I've already done that. It's not that the results were good and he didn't call, it's that he didn't know the results were in and so he didn't check. I tell him that I left the message on Monday that they were done, and that I had questions about the hospital referral. He shuffles through the file, and I can hear Dayton moving restively behind me.

"OK, here they are. Let me just look at them for a minute. OK, chest x-ray. Upper lungs fine, there are some nodules in the lower lungs. That's not a big deal, nothing we have to cope with right now."

On to the CT. "Upper GI looks fine." I cheer, and Dr. B smiles. "Lower organs normal, except for the uterus, and some small lesions on the left ovary. Estimated size of the uterine growth is..." and he reads off some numbers, then looks at me. "That's about the size of a golf ball." Whew. That's much bigger than we expected. He goes on to say that it looks like the node/tumor/growth is beginning to work it's way into the uterine wall, rather than just growing on the endometrial lining. That's less good, but still not bad, he says. There is no evidence that it has escaped the uterus. That's good news.

So we talk. I ask him, "exactly what cancer do I have?" It's endometrial cancer. "What causes it?" They don't know, although it seems to affect two types of the population - skinny white women, and obese black women. I always knew there was a large black woman inside of me, trying to get out!

We talk about the hospital options. He's been trying to get hold of Rush, just as I asked last week, but no luck yet. "That's OK, because I checked with our insurance company, and they no longer cover Rush." So it's down to Northwestern or UW-Madison. I ask for his opinion, and he says that he believes the care is better at Madison. So we make the decision to go there. He will have his office set it up. We don't have to do anything, the nurse will call us with our appointment date & time.

I ask about estimated recovery time after surgery. 8 WEEKS!!!! I'm stunned. I ask if there is anything I should be doing between now and then. "Try to have a normal life. If there is something you want to do, go do it. This is major surgery, and while most of the time things work out just fine, you just never know." I tell him that the oncology nurse suggested packing on some extra calories. He laughs. "As a doctor I can't advise my patients to eat ice cream, but hey, it's a pleasant way to add some calories fast. And skip the frozen yogurt - why bother?"

Dayton asks how quickly this can be done. "I hate watching my wife go through so much pain. The past few days have been OK, but the weekend was hell." Dr. B is sympathetic, but firm. "This isn't something to rush into, they will want to make sure exactly what to do before the surgery. And they are busy, I wouldn't expect to get in any earlier than a week or two."

Our time is up, I'm out of questions. We're done here. I ask Dr. B, "is this the last time I see you?" He says I can call any time, but he's not going to set up appointments for me to come in, because he can't doing anything else, and why bill me for that? He gives me another hug, and this time I do hear him say, "You're going to be just fine."

We go out to lunch afterwards. I have a chocolate shake - Doctor's orders.