Tag Archives: adenocarcinoma

The Waiting Is The Hardest Part

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Today’s cancer-related word of the day:  scanxiety. It’s the gnawing worry one feels when one is waiting for an upcoming CT scan and suffering through the long agonizing wait for results. It sucks. And yes, it is a thing. It’s a thing I’m dealing with now.

(Disclaimer – I swear I really am not a neurotic nutbag who thinks she’s constantly on the verge of death. This blog was started as a way for me to share my journey with other cervical cancer patients and for me to empty out the words that build up in my head on occasion. I promise, I am not running about willy-nilly 24/7 convinced that the sky is falling. But the fears that sneak up on me…those I need to get out of my head. What’s the old saying? A problem shared is a problem halved? Or some such nonsense? So consider it me sharing and you taking a portion of it from me. You’re welcome. Just wait until this cancer-thing is behind me and I start pouring out the rest of my neuroses. Mwah hah hah!)

Tomorrow we make the long drive back to UCLA for more CT scans. Pelvic and abdominal, with and without contrast. Then we make the long quiet drive home to wait a week or two for the results. As I’ve said before, the worst part of this whole thing is all of the waiting for test results. I wish they were instant. But instead, we have to wait on the experts to examine all of the snazzy little black and white images of my innards and hope they don’t see any new tumors or spots. Then again, who knows – maybe the whole point of the long wait is to purposefully give your mind time to explore all of the possibilities – as awful as they may be. To wrap your head around the what ifs. To run through all of the scenarios. That’s a new thought – I may have to explore that one some more and let that idea roll around my brain for a bit. Hmm.

At this point, I have been in remission/NED for almost 10 months. The ‘normal’ recurrence time frame for ‘normal’ cervical cancer, if it happens, is around 1.5 – 2 years post-treatment. Too bad I’m not normal. I won the odds lottery with a rare sub-set of an uncommon cancer, aka adenosquamous carcinoma, and it likes to come back and visit a lot faster – usually in half the time as ‘normal’ cervical cancer. I think the average is 9 months or so after treatment. I’ve been having some weird and worsening pains in my upper abdomen, hips and pelvis for a few months now. It started as random stabs of pain and has slowly become constant with random extra stabs of pain that take my breath away. I do not like it and I am not amused. Hence the reason for the new scans.

There are, of course, a multitude of other reasons that could, and probably do, explain the new pains. It could simply be adhesions from the surgery – that’s where as you heal inside, things kind of stick together and stay that way via the magic of healing and scar tissue. It could be that my hernias that I had repaired 10+ years ago have re-herniated and need to be repaired again. It could be that I have the new trendy gluten intolerance and it’s messing with my stomach and intestines. It could be that I have an ulcer. It could be that I’m just getting old. It could be any of a thousand things. Or it could be that my cancer missed me and wanted to come hang out again. Because you know, that bitch just can’t take a hint.

As I’ve been poking around the interwebs trying to edumacate myself and see if there are any new advances/breakthroughs in cancer research, one of the truly frustrating things is a lack of information. (What?!?!? A lack of information on the internet? Impossible! But true.) There are two main types of cervical cancer and most research dollars are logically spent on them. Unless you have squamous cell carcinoma (75-80% of all cervical cancers) or the less common adenocarcinoma (20-25% of all cervical cancers), you’re kind of out of luck as far as research goes. If you have either of those types of cancer, you can rest assured that there have been hundreds or thousands of studies done on your cancer and that the common characteristics are largely agreed upon. The less common cervical cancers that COMBINED make up about 5% of all cervical cancers – clear cell, glassy cell, small cell and adenosquamous carcinomas among quite a few others – have scant available information. (Hell, even my spell check doesn’t recognize adenosquamous as a word.) I usually just find a short blurb under the heading of ‘Other Rare Cervical Cancers’ in scientific journals and books. ‘Hey, here’s some other cancers that we don’t see very often so we don’t bother researching. We don’t know much about them, so good luck’ is the vibe I get there. Awesome. I really hope that UCLA is using my info for a study or research or something. It would be nice to contribute in some way that might lead to someone further down the road finding useful information on this cancer. Because the info that is out there SUCKS!

**Warning – the following paragraph is a lot of contradictory statistics and pessimistic snarling. Feel free to skip over it while I get some depressing crap out of my head. Thanks.** It is incredibly frustrating to read contradictory studies that vary so widely in their results. In the past 10 months or so, I’ve read that at stage 1B, my cancer (and no, I’m still not used to typing ‘my cancer’) has a 10-15% recurrence rate. And that it has a 70% recurrence rate. That it has an 85% 5-year survival rate. And that it has a 27% 5-year survival rate. That it’s highly aggressive. And that it’s no more aggressive than any other cervical cancer. That it has a poor prognosis. And that it has a similar prognosis to ‘normal’ cervical cancer. And then there’s my personal favorite that I learned today – one medical textbook reported that the 5-year survival rate in stage 1B patients whose biopsies showed lymphatic invasion is 69%. If there is blood vessel invasion, then it’s around 30%. Fun stuff, huh? Guess who had angio-lymphatic invasion? (‘Angio’ refers to blood vessels for those of you who skipped anatomy.) Turns out having early-stage cancer is good (‘good’ as in treatable. Not ‘good’ as in yay cancer!). But having early-stage cancer with tiny cancer cells floating throughout your lymphatic/circulatory system is bad. Doctors are understandably hesitant to be throwing chemo and radiation at every patient with early-stage cancer, but it turns out that can actually be a bad thing. Surgery without chemo/rad as a follow up is largely the norm for stage 1, but can leave the possibility open to one of those tiny floaty cancer cells finding a new home somewhere else and sneakily taking up residence without anyone noticing. Multiple studies have shown that in later stage cancers (2, 3 and 4), that same finding simply isn’t a factor. That microscopic invasion makes zero difference unless you’re stage 1. Whee hoo! So glad THAT’S the one thing multiple studies agree on. *eyeroll* **Annnnnnd end snarly depressing cancer rant**

So yeah. CT scan tomorrow. I’m feeling a little better about it after rambling through today’s blog. I just have to keep reminding myself that one groovy thing I’ve got going for me is that I know I’m not a number or a statistic. So here’s to being like all the normal ladies with normal cancers and continuing to be cancer-free. I guess we’ll find out soon. Just not soon enough for my liking.

Stoopid scanxiety.

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Almost 7 Months Later…

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So here it is – almost 7 months after my radical hysterectomy and lymphadenectomy for stage 1B1 adenosquamous carcinoma, and 4 days after my last itty-bitty-clean-things-up-and-do-another-ginormous-biopsy surgery. And I’m still here. Fuck you, cancer. And yes, I’ll get back to telling my story soon. Just wanted to post an update for you kids and to let folks know that it gets better.

This isn’t a long, story-telling blog post. Like I said, just an update to let everyone know I’m still alive and kicking. And I’m doing better than I have in a long, long time. Maybe it’s the upcoming 40th birthday looming in the not-so-distant future that’s motivating me, or maybe it’s the fact that I’m finally not in pain every damn day, but I’m finally feeling really good, and working out again so I can be even more awesome than usual for my birthday.

Don’t get me wrong – I still have pains that I can’t quite figure out and that my oncologist wants to take happy snaps of (CT scans for those of you who can’t translate my dork-speak), and I still have moments where I get angry or emotional over stupid shit. Example – for my surgery on Thursday, which was at the same UCLA where all of my treatments and surgeries have taken place, I was asked twice to provide a urine sample. I knew exactly why both times, and both times I was kind of a bitch about asking what they needed it for. In my not-able-to-have-kids-due-to-cancer-and-having-my-uterus-removed-by-you-people mentality, they should have made the minor effort required to glance at the computer screen and realize why I’m there. And to perhaps not ask me to take a pregnancy test. We women-folk who have had that option taken away from us tend to get a little touchy about things like that. Or so I hear.

So yeah. Occasionally I get a little cranky over silly things like not being able to have kids (which wasn’t even really in my plans anyway). And occasionally I get to thoroughly enjoy a good workout (first time for everything, right?). And occasionally I still get emotional over people I barely know on-line who find themselves right where I was 8 months ago. And occasionally I freak out about every little ache and pain and am convinced my world-class doctors are idiots. And occasionally I remember that I am truly blessed to have received the medical care I did and to have kicked this beast’s ass. And occasionally (ok, maybe more than occasionally) I remember that the fight isn’t over yet. But I always remember how very, very lucky I am to still be here. And no matter what is happening in my life, I still laugh at least once a day. And as long as I’m still laughing, I’m still living – and living well. And I think that’s all anyone could ever hope for.

I swear, I’ll catch everyone up on the story soon. Honest. Feel free to blame my latest surgery, Christmas, New Years, President’s Day, MLK Jr Day, winter superstorms, the flu, sequestration, the giant meteor over Russia, drone attacks, the Blade Runner murder, North Korea’s nuclear test (or Dennis Rodman’s visit), the pope’s resignation or Lindsey Lohan’s everything on why it’s taken so long for the latest update. Just don’t blame it on me. Because it’s my blog, dammit. And I’ll get there when I get there. But it’ll be soon. I promise.

And The Hits Just Keep On Coming…

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So now that I’m feeling loads better, let’s get back to the story shall we? Last I left off on my recounting of this fabulous journey, I had just been informed via a static-y phone call that my last biopsy had found a tumor and that I officially had stage 1B1 adenocarcinoma of the cervix. Phone calls were made, tears were shed and much alcohol was consumed. And then…

I thought I had reached the end of the internet before – I was wrong. I googled and read every possible bit of information on my diagnosis. I read research papers, chat boards, textbooks, articles and studies. While waiting for my next appointment with my oncologist, I had to. I had to keep my mind from wandering off to places it shouldn’t go. (I’m a blonde – my brain wanders. A lot.) So I read and I learned. And what I learned was that I basically had 2 options: a radical hysterectomy and lymphadenectomy or a combo of radiation and chemo. Whee hoo! So being the wise chicky I am, I had already decided I would go the surgical route. Because the joy of radiation is that they can only treat an area once – so if I went the chemo/rad route and the cancer ever came back, I would be screwed. And really – who wants to do chemo/rad? No thanks. I like my hair. And being able to taste/eat food. And having bones that aren’t brittle. And having skin free of burns. And…the list goes on. Anyhoo…so fast forward a week to meeting with my groovy oncologist. Rudy and I were scared as hell, but oddly jovial. Nervous laughter was the theme of the day. I swear the poor office staff must have thought we were both insane what with all the giggling and inappropriate jokes while we waited for the doc to come in. Gallows humor is a hoot. You should try it.

After the initial hi/howyadoin’/handshakes with the doctor, I wanted to get right to it. I wanted to read with my own eyes the test results. Luckily my oncologist was already aware that I had a nasty habit of researching the hell out of everything, so I let him talk to Rudy while I scanned the test results. Scan scan scan…screeching halt. Wait, what? Adenosquamous carcinoma? What the hell? That’s TWO cancers at the same time! Adenocarcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma! Damn you static-y cell phone! Scan scan scan…screeching halt. Wait, what? Lymphovascular invasion? What the hell? That means the cancer is in the blood vessels that go to my lymph nodes! At that point, my brain shut down. It really did. The doctor, as expected, offered the choice of surgery or chemo/rad and explained the pros and cons of each. He recommended surgery and I agreed. There was apparently a lot more said during the appointment, and a lot of discussion of chemo/rad, but I don’t remember it. At all. According to Rudy, my brain conveniently blanked out each and every mention my doctor made of chemo/rad. To this day, I don’t remember discussing it at all other than him offering me the choice. But we apparently also discussed the possibility of me needing it after surgery depending on what they found or in the future if the cancer ever returned. Who knew? I’m still half convinced that Rudy’s just trying to trick me into thinking I’m losing my mind because I have zero recollection of it. Good times. What’s even better is that I read that pathology report 200 times in the next day or two, and every single time I missed another ‘wait, what?’ line. The brain really does a marvelous job of protecting us from things we aren’t quite ready for yet. The other biggie that I conveniently didn’t see (literally, the pathology report was in bullet format, about 10 lines – it wasn’t rocket science) was that my margins weren’t clear. Meaning when they took the ginormous biopsy, the cancerous cells went all the way to the edge. Bad juju.

So after a very surreal appointment with my fabulous oncologist (who really, really does look and sound like the long-haired blonde dude from Die Hard), we headed over to do up the paperwork for my surgery. Luckily they had just done all the pre-surgery lab work for that pesky biopsy, so I only had to re-do a few blood tests. But since this next one was such a major surgery, I had to have my military doctor do a physical and certify that I was healthy enough to undergo the surgery. Huh. That was new. I’ve had a few surgeries requiring general anesthesia in my almost 20 years in the military, and not once did I ever need a physical to certify I would live through a surgery. Odd. (And yes, this is totally out of order time-line wise, but my on-base physical provided me with some seriously morbid giggles. Perky young airman checking me in – ‘So, have you had any health issues since you were last seen here?’ Me – ‘You mean besides the cancer?’ Perky young airman – horrified stare and stammering apology. Me – *snicker*) Ok, back to the story. Paperwork. Scheduling surgery. So there was no debate, no ‘what works for you.’ I had already been scheduled for surgery. 9 August 2012. I signed some paperwork, read that I had to be at the hospital at 4:45am (WHAT?!?!) and that I couldn’t eat solid food the day prior, and nothing after midnight the day of. Awesome. At this point I didn’t care about the surgery. What I cared about was that I was going to be one starving, caffeine-deprived, raging bitch. (Looking back, that might be the worst part of this entire journey – the amount of tests and surgeries that I had to have that required me to starve/dehydrate myself for extended periods of time. Are these people not aware that at a bare minimum I need caffeine to survive?!?!?) So I signed my life away to UCLA Medical Center and we went on our merry little way.

I think we were a little more subdued after that. The jokes were done, the smartassery was done. Suddenly having the piece of paper that officially spelled out what was wrong with me made everything 100 times more real. I couldn’t stop reading it, as if the words would change if I looked at it hard enough. We had a quiet little lunch that quickly got back to normal as we fell into our old routine of mocking the doctors and students as they hurried by. (Yeah, yeah, we’re horrible people. We know. It’s really why we get along so well and are so perfect for each other.) I honestly don’t remember the rest of the day. We could have gone to the beach or we could have gone straight home. All I remember is both dreading and desperately needing to call home and tell my mom and dad AGAIN that things were worse than we thought. I was tired of making my mom cry, but I needed to talk to her and my dad and have them tell me that it would all be fine. And they did. Because they’re amazing. And wonderful. And always there for me.

So the phone calls were made, e-mails sent and all was quiet in Samantha and Rudy world for the night. We had a few drinks, we talked, we cried, we held each other. Mostly we reassured each other that I would be fine. And he reassured me that he would take care of me no matter what. But that he would kick my ass if I didn’t come out of this ok. He so gets me. I think that night was when we started discussing the idea of one last ‘whoo hoo!’ trip to Vegas before my surgery. Knowing that I was going to be laid up for weeks and potentially could take months to get back up to feeling human, we thought it might be a good idea to have one last fling and forget about the cancer for a few days. It was also kind of nice to have something to look forward to other than having my innards ripped out. And as we talked about Vegas over the next few days, there was of course the natural progression to discussing the other thing that Vegas is known for besides gambling. That’s right kids…weddings!

 

 

Vegas, baby!

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80 to 90% – that’s my 5 year survival rate. Sure, those odds sound awesome when you’re in Vegas. Hell yeah! Put $500 on black! Pull that slot machine! But when it’s your survival odds – they don’t sound so awesome.

Sure, the odds could be worse. And I could get hit by a dementia-suffering dude while driving on the highway which always has the potential to make my 1-day survival rate approximately zero. But still. They could be a hell of a lot better. Especially when coupled with a 35% chance of recurrence in the next year. I’m not so jazzed about that either. But honestly, at this point (2 days before surgery) I’m feeling pretty damn good. Call it acceptance, call it denial, hell, call it Shirley if you want – but I’m good. Really. I got this. I’ve come to terms with all the possibilities – all clear on Thursday, bad news on Thursday and I need chemo and radiation, and the possibility that I’ll have to wrestle with this ugly beast again in the not so distant future. I think it’s because I know no matter what happens, I will not be in that 10-20%. Not. Going. To. Happen. I know that. And knowing, boys and girls, is half the battle.

Apologies for the long delay between posts for the 2 or 3 people that are bothering to read. Been a little busy what with the running off to Vegas to get married, and spending time with my wonderful mom who flew out to visit/help out after surgery. Kinda been busy living and whatnot. So when last I left, I had been referred to a new doc who seemed to know his stuff. Mostly. We went ahead and scheduled a colposcopy (coating the cervix in an acetic acid to highlight abnormalities, then using a magnifying machine to examine it), an endocervical biopsy (ECC) and an endometrial biopsy. Me being a smart chicky, went ahead and did some research on those. Let’s just say that if you believe everything you read on-line, an endometrial biopsy causes agonizing pain equivalent of Nazi medical experiments. (If you’re offended by that, then you should read more stories from women on how their doctors treat them. Seriously.) While I wasn’t looking forward to the tests, I found myself wanting the date to hurry up and arrive so I could figure out what in the world was brewing in my lady parts.

Biopsy day. Light breakfast followed by lots and lots of motrin. And then one more motrin for good measure when I got to the doctor’s office. Just wanted to be prepared for getting carved up. Whee hoo. He strolls in to the room to chat and go over the procedures, and only mentions 2 of the biopsies – the one he doesn’t mention is THE test for my test results – the ECC. Hmmm. I remind him that we need to do the ECC as well. He hems and haws and I finally put my foot down and demand it. He had to tell the nurse to prepare one more specimen jar. Seriously? He wasn’t going to do one of the mandated freaking biopsies for my test results. Guess he wasn’t an expert on my test results after all. Shocking. Ok doc, let’s get going and get this over with.

Now before I start this next section, in my defense, I was hopped up on a large amount of motrin, adrenaline, stress and fear. It wasn’t until afterwards that I realized that my doc was a bigger moron than previously thought. So cue biopsies. Cervical biopsy – ow. That kind of pinched. Ok. Endometrial biopsy – OH. DEAR. GOD! This should never be done to women without massive amounts of drugs. Sure, it was over in about 30 seconds, but seriously. Do something that causes that much pain to any random dude and it would immediately be a medical standard to prescribe oxycontin and xanax beforehand. But womenfolk? Nah – suck it up. (All the old male doctors that make the rules have decided that this doesn’t hurt and doesn’t require painkillers. Bullshit.) And last but not least, the ECC – owie. More owie than the cervical biopsy, less owie than the endometrial biopsy. But it took a lot longer, and at that point, I wanted to go curl up with a heating pad, more drugs and large amounts of bourbon. Finally finished with the biopsies, the doctor proceeds to look at the floor and tell me the results would be back in a week or so. Then he proceeds to practically bolt from the room. Me finally being a smart-ish chicky, ask him how things looked – because had he done the procedure properly, he would have seen any abnormalities. He mumbles something about seeing a fibroid tumor, and THEN bolts out of the room. Hmmm. Odd. Now on to why I now think he’s a moron – remember that biopsy that involved an acid wash and a big machine to closely examine abnormal cells? Yeah. He didn’t do the wash. He didn’t use the big machine. He just randomly took a biopsy. Idiot. I’m still furious about it now – how many women has he missed pre-cancers or cancers on because he didn’t bother to do the test properly? And yes, I will be having a little chat with my insurance company about him. It’s just not exactly on the top of my priority list right now. But I will get to it. Honest.

So tests done – now the wait. The wait is the worst part of all of this. I don’t care what diagnosis you get – the wait sucks. Your imagination can have all kinds of fun tormenting you in all the copious amounts of spare time you have wondering what the doc will say. And yes, you can try to keep yourself busy and have people tell you not to worry since worrying won’t change anything and to try not to think about it. Bullshit. You will think about it. And even when you don’t want to think about it, your subconscious will be having a field day. Trust me on this. Thankfully, I only had a week to worry – and the worrying wasn’t really too bad this time. It was my first abnormal pap ever, after all. I assumed it was some abnormal cells that they could just remove, or worst case a few pre-cancerous cells that would require a little more in-depth removal, but still fairly easy. Piece of cake.

What I wasn’t prepared for was for my phone to ring a week later at 7:00am. Who the hell calls someone at 7:00am?!?! Oh. This one thing the doctor did right. He called me literally as soon as he got my results. Endometrial biopsy – clear. (Yay!) Cervical biopsy – carcinoma suggestive of endocervical adenocarcinoma in-situ, micro-invasion cannot be ruled out. ECC – adenocarcinoma in-situ. Shit. My brain heard ‘carcinoma’ and whispered ‘cancer’ for the first time. Needless to say, I was too numb to ask any questions. I thanked him and immediately went and curled up in bed with my man who got the pleasure of waking up to me crying on his chest telling him it was cancer. Awesome.

After much, much time spent on google, I learned that adenocarcinoma in-situ is kind of a pseudo-cancer. It’s cancerous cells, but they haven’t really spread anywhere – they’re localized on the surface mostly. Some doctors don’t even consider it a ‘real’ cancer – it’s a shadowy thing that is somewhere in between a severe pre-cancer and cancer. So that was ok. But the crappy part is that even with adenocarcinoma in-situ, a hysterectomy is the standard of practice for treatment. Oh, and the other crappy part is the fact that it’s aggressive, fairly uncommon and likes to skip over healthy cells by traveling through the glands to pop up wherever the hell it feels like it. It has no standard pattern of growth or spread. So drastic measures are always taken when it rears its ugly head.

As much as learning that sucked, I would give my left arm (not my right one – I need that) to go back to just being diagnosed with adenocarcinoma in-situ. Looking back, it seems like such a cute, cuddly little thing. Yup – universe still not done screwing with me yet. But luckily, the universe (and TriCare) eventually got one thing right – my next doctor.

2 days until surgery. 2 days until hopefully hearing that I’m cancer-free for now. 2 years of checkups every 3 months, 3 years of checkups every 6 months. After that, I’ll officially be cancer-free. I can’t wait to see 2017. It’s going to be fan-freaking-tastic.

Medical Trials and Tribulations

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This morning I woke up at 4:15am, furious and unable to go back to sleep. No matter how much time I’ve had to deal with the cancer, and how generally ok with it I finally am, it still sneaks up on me every now and again. Mostly it sneaks up on me and steals my sleep. I don’t know the last time I got more than 4 or 5 hours at one time. It’s nothing overt – just a vague whisper in the back of my mind that reminds me that it’s there. That reminds me my own body is doing its best to kill me. That reminds me that no matter what anyone says, it’s still going to take a part of me – a part that like it or not, is the very center of a woman. And that reminds me that it’s just sitting there waiting for me to surrender. Most of the time I am able to tell it to fuck off or at the very least tell it right back that I’m going to kick its ass. And occasionally, it wins for the moment. I’ll conquer it eventually, but for this morning, it is winning the battle. Good thing I’m going to win the war.

So let’s see – to summarize things so far, a pesky little pap test that I didn’t even need came back with minor abnormalities that were just enough to keep me from deploying. Happy dances all around! I got the news around 4:30pm on a Wednesday, and by 9:00am on Thursday, the referral office was calling me from the base clinic with an appointment for further tests. Hmmm. Military healthcare moving quickly? Perhaps there’s more going on than I know – that never happens. So the following week, I headed off to meet my new civilian doctor. I had looked up his info on-line and found nothing negative, so that was a start. But he graduated medical school almost 45 years ago in China. Hmmm. Surely he’s had more education since then, right? I arrive at my appointment 15 minutes early, like a good patient, and check in with the teenage/early 20’s chick behind the counter who was more concerned with her gossiping coworkers than the patients in the waiting room. 20-30 minutes after my appointment time I was less amused. In all of my time in the military, I’d only ever seen one other civilian doctor – and that was a great experience. I had heard about these silly ‘wait times’ and ‘overbooking,’ but really had no experience with any of it.

Finally my name is called. Bingo! Ooh ooh! Pick me! A nurse ushers me back to take my vitals and review my paperwork. As she’s going over the paperwork and randomly highlighting things, I ask her if she/the doctor sees test results like mine very often. She gives me a puzzled look and says, ‘oh, sure. All the time.’ I raise one eyebrow and say, ‘really? Because I had read that the atypical glandular cells are fairly uncommon.’ She looks at me like I’m one of the special kids and says, ‘you don’t have that.’ *sigh* I then point it out to her on the paperwork, right in between 2 things she had just highlighted. (That’s right, who’s the moron now? Yay, me!) ‘Oh,’ she says, ‘that is rare.’ *double sigh*

Then I get herded (mooooo) back to the exam room. Where I wait. And wait. And wait some more. I spend my time checking out the room. Huh. Who knew cardboard boxes were so handy at holding up parts of broken furniture? Haven’t I seen this equipment on some movie that was set in the 1960’s? Seriously, did this guy buy all of his equipment and furniture at some hospital going out of business sale? When was that cleaned last? Ewwww! Not exactly confidence inspiring. That’s ok – I’m sure the doctor is great. Oh, here he comes now. ‘Hi, I’m Samantha. How are…’ OH. MY. GOD. He’s 410 years old and missing teeth. Not just a few – all of his top front teeth! For the love of God, man! You’re a doctor! Despite my urge to run, I decide to stick it out. He tells me he needs my test results. I tell him that the nurse set them on the table and point them out. ‘No, no,’ he says, ‘the actual test results from the base. That is just a summary.’ At least I think that’s what he said – I’m completely guessing here. I could understand about 1 in 4 words. The ‘doctor’ then leaves to go call the base clinic while I sit for another half an hour waiting on the base to send the ‘actual test results.’ In the meantime, I hear him in other exam rooms dealing with other patients. At least 2 others during my appointment time. I’m sure this is standard in some medical practices, but I wanted to punch him in the head. Repeatedly.

Finally he comes back in the room and tells me that he thinks the hospital sent over the wrong paperwork because he doesn’t see my test results. *triple sigh* I ask him if I could take a look at them and realize it’s the same lab results paperwork I had at home. It is just 2 pages of test results – that he couldn’t find. (Yeah, I know that doesn’t make sense. Imagine someone is holding a piece of paper with just their name written on it. Now imagine that person says they can’t find their name. Same thing. Honestly.) So after I point out the 3 specific lines with my abnormalities (yeah, yeah, I know my abnormalities should take up more than 3 little lines. Find an original joke), he asks me when the last time I had sex was, because he can’t do the biopsies if there’s a chance I’m pregnant. ‘That shouldn’t be a problem,’ I tell him, ‘I’m on depo-provera.’ (Injectable birth control, 99.8% effective, same effectiveness as if I’d had my tubes tied yaddah yaddah yaddah.) He couldn’t give a rat’s ass because there’s a 0.2% that I could be pregnant. ‘Abstain for 2 weeks, then come back with a negative pregnancy test – then I’ll do the biopsies. Besides, you look healthy – you don’t have cancer, so there’s no rush.’ *quadruple sigh* There was absolutely nothing I could do to change his mind. I later discovered that he’s apparently the only doctor on the planet that does that, and that the government health care system paid him $150 for about 3 minutes of his useless time. Awesome.

Fast forward to the next day – I’m on the phone with my medical insurance folks and discover I am allowed to change doctors or get a second opinion whenever I want. Who knew? Down side – it takes a little longer to get an appointment with the competent doctors. Next appointment is now a month away – just for a consult. Ah, the joys of living in the middle of nowhere – where all the really good doctors are over 2 hours away, and the competent ones 45 minutes away are still hard to find. So there I sit, with no answers and no one to ask except my old friend Google. And let me tell you, Google can be an over-informative bitch when you’ve got a month to research.

Fast forward to a month later. I head off to meet with my next doctor. I had verified with the nurse on the phone that he would do the consult and the biopsies at that appointment. ‘No problem,’ she says, ‘I’ll make sure he knows and the room is set up.’ Awesome! So we stroll into his office and it’s lovely. Very nicely decorated, very professional staff and generally very comfy. Ooooh, coffee and lemon-water and little dishes of nuts and candy while you wait. Fancy! After a short wait, I meet my new doc. He’s very reassuring and sounds like he knows what he’s talking about. ‘I’ve dealt with atypical glandular cells a lot,’ he informs me, ‘in fact, the other doctors in the area usually send me their cases because they aren’t familiar with it, and I’m more experienced.’ Whew. Finally, a doctor who knows what we’re dealing with. And then this, ‘you look slender and healthy – you don’t have cancer. But at your age and with these results, if you ever thought about having kids, you should have gotten pregnant last night.’ *sigh* Even with that, I still felt generally happy with him – he seemed like he knew what he was talking about and spent a lot of time explaining things to us. Even when he told me he wasn’t going to do the biopsies that day and to come back for another appointment, I still thought he was fantastic. But oh universe, you’re not quite done screwing with me and giving me incompetent doctors, are you? Nope. Not even a little.

More rambling later…for now I’ve squandered away the extra time from my early wake up with this. But on the bright side, I’ve finally got the little cancer voice all bound and gagged and buried out back somewhere. I’m sure that little bastard will work himself free eventually and come back to bother me, but for now, he’s not saying a word. 

The Gorgeous Blonde Redux

Posted by RMartinez in Uncategorized and tagged with , , , , ,

This was originally posted on twodudesblog.com

So a lot of you have responded positively to the Gorgeous Blonde post that I thought I would ask her to respond. Below is an interview with her.  I wanted her to say in her own words what it is that she is dealing with.

Please feel free to contact (and encourage her to start her own blog) at:

TheGorgeousBlonde@twodudesblog.com