Upgrade verb: give a promotion to or assign to a higher position. And that would be me! Ta-Da! (You can go ahead with that golf clap for me if you don’t mind.) My trip to the Oncologist yesterday finally initiated an UPGRADE with my name attached! After 20-some months of going back every three months, I have been promoted to every six! That means….I don’t have to go back anymore until after CHRISTMAS!!! (K…on second thought, let’s nix the proper little golf clap and promote it to a stinging, raucous palm beater full of convulsive enthusiasm, energy and celebratory excitement!!) This is a big ol deal for big ol me!
That probably doesn’t make one lick of sense to some and others are calculating the $25 co-pay savings as a reason to be so happy, but for me, there’s a Royal-Gorge-sized appreciation and thorough understanding of the emotional clearance this upgrade delivers! I, Debbie Gray, have been deemed healthy enough to extend my visits to a half a year! I wonder if the doctors have a clue what an elevator their words are. (Elevators, we know, are all about ups and downs.)
BC (before cancer), when walking through a medical building, I always felt such sorrow for those in the waiting rooms behind the plaque that said ONCOLGY on the door! In fact, I tried not to look and just said a prayer for all of them in there. Seeing an Oncology office gave me the heeby-jeebies. It was the same inside feeling that I get when I see LIFE FLIGHT taking off or returning from a mission (particularly at Children’s Mercy) or see an ambulance coming or going…you just know someone’s day is ruined. I guess somewhere deep inside, be it selfishness or fear or some foreign menagerie of feelings, I hoped with all my being that it would never be me walking through that door, signing in on that check-in list, sitting in that waiting room and hearing my name called by a stranger standing, holding the door with her foot and a chart with my name on it, waiting to escort me back to some sterile and scary cubicle….with or without windows – it wouldn’t matter. But then….what is so routine and matter-of-fact for office staff…”that’ll be $25 for your co-pay …” and “check the information and initial at the bottom if it is all correct” and “I need to make a copy of your insurance card” was being spoken to ME! And how ‘bout they way they call you from your wait. “Debra Gray?” You know you’re seeing a doctor when your name becomes a question! Another 100% accurate indicator is DEBRA instead of Debbie.
AC (after cancer) I’d like to say that anxiety and dread dissipates after 20-some months of doing the Oncologist-visit routine, but for me, it hasn’t…yet. So THAT is why this promotion is so stinkin’ cool!!
In addition to that much-appreciated upgrade, Dr. Swaiki also spent a considerable amount of time discussing some new studies he’d been reading. Still always worrying – at least a little - what the good doctor is going to say, find or do, I had my own personal little flood warning – of the adrenalin variety - when he pulled up a chair and sat down. (He never sits down!) I’m positive that was the most benign of actions, but everything seems augmented under the circumstances and yesterday was no different. But the news was….good….I guess.
“I guess” because every three months I’m asked how I’m doing and I’ve always reported marked stiffness, joint and bone pain – and that I experience it 100% of the time. (I feel so sorry for my husband.) I never felt like he wasn’t hearing me nor did I feel ignored, but I also never felt like what I was saying was going to ever make a difference. In fact, at my last appointment, I decided not to even mention the chronic pain. He asked though, so I told him again, and still nothing was said to instill a sliver of confidence that these symptoms were from cancer meds instead of perhaps cancer itself, crawling through my bones. Part of me wondered if he maybe thought I am just a whimpy, whiney woman or maybe even a hyper hypochondriac. THAT bothered me some, but there was nothing I could do about that so no need to linger on that. So when he sat down yesterday, he began sharing about a study indicating that women who are taking the same cancer drug as I - Femara – an aromitase inhibitor – and are suffering with marked stiffness, long bone and joint pain are seemingly reaping more benefits from the drug than perhaps those who are not suffering any side effects. The assumption is that the pain is an indicator that the drugs are effectively leaching the hormones from the body and consequently, causing the chronic yuck.
This is kinda like sweet and sour pork, ya know? On the one hand, I now know that he knows I’m not just a complainer, so it validates my complaints, I guess. It also helped me know he was really thinking about it when he said something to the effect that he just didn’t know why most of his patients on this drug didn’t have side effects and only a few did. There will have to be more studies done to reveal why some are affected by it differently than others, but suffice it to say, I was, in a peculiar way, glad to know that my bad hurt is actually good hurt! So for us who are hurting…let’s connect that pain to a reminder to just thank God that we’re reaping the fullest of benefits from the treatment….and…we’re still alive to reap it!
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