Cancer Journey- Part 2

I left off of the last post being admitted to the hospital. If you would like to read that first, click here.

The Hospital Stay

I should state that conversations with a whole slew of various doctors during the two days at the hospital have gotten very mixed up in my head. I know they happened, but with whom and when is just a big blur. I believe that it was the doctor that initially looked over my CT scan that said that he had contacted the Hematology/Oncology doctor and that that doctor said I should see him.

The CT scan that showed the lesions on my spine and fluid in my abdomen also showed a thickening of part of my large intestine. Gastroenterology was not contacted at this time.

I can’t remember how many blood draws I had while in the ER but I do know that the nurses did a total of seven different draws overnight and into the next day. If I wasn’t already anemic, it seemed as though I would be by the time they were done with me.

A bit before midnight a gentleman wheeled me down to the MRI wing. Within a few minutes I was getting situated on the table to have my first MRI. Those things are loud! I spent 45 minutes getting my upper back and stomach done twice. Contrast was added for the second go round. Once done the gentleman wheeled me back to my room.

Later that morning I was told that the MRI didn’t pick up on anything new, but it did confirm the findings of the CT scan. I was also told that a referral for Hematology was in the system and that I would be getting a call to make an appointment. They still had no idea why I was so anemic. And though I had been hooked up to a heart monitor (the whole reason I went to the ER in the first place) nothing abnormal was found. I was then freed to go home Monday afternoon.

This was not how I wanted to spend my President’s Day weekend, but as my dad says, “Those are the breaks, baby.” Just to be clear, he did not say it here.

The next day was Tuesday. I didn’t do my normal workout in the morning, but I did head into work. My heart would hurt so much if I walked any faster than a turtle. My coworkers are an amazing bunch of people. They helped run various errands for me as needed. The pain continued into Wednesday but eventually went away. No idea what caused it, but I’m glad it’s gone.

Referral Fun

A few days passed and I got the call to schedule with the Hematology/Oncology clinic. I was offered October 18th. Yes, October! Eight months away! The lady on the phone asked if I wanted to turn down the appointment. I said yes and she said that she would put in a referral for a civilian doctor. I was to watch the mail for my referral paperwork.

More Appointments

On Feb 24th I had my CT scan that my original doctor had ordered. The findings were the same. I’m not sure what I expected to be different. I guess I was hoping for more helpful images as to what was wrong with my intestine.

My brother-in-law, Jason, is a military surgeon, so all along the way Ben was sending him my reports to get any new insight. He agreed with what had already been said, that it wasn’t good. I was really hoping for him to say, “That’s completely normal. Don’t worry,” but instead he told us that cancer in the spine, if that is what it is, usually doesn’t present itself in the GI track.

On March 6th I went in for the ultrasound that my original doctor had put me in for. Nothing new showed up at that appointment either. Oh! I did get to see my latest kidney stone on the screen. So that’s something else to think about. It’s been hanging around for over 12 years. I was told about it during my last round with stones. Evil little nasties.

More Referral Fun

The next week my referral came. Oh, the joys this brought. I called the number. They started taking my information and then asked what my insurance was. I told them and she said “I’m sorry. We don’t take that insurance.” I told her that my insurance was the one that had them listed and sent me there and I had a referral. It didn’t matter. It was what it was.

I called my insurance and the lady (Precious or Princess, I forgot which) apologized for the bad referral. She found a new place, put me on hold to confirm the phone number and that they did, in fact, take my insurance. She said that she would fax the referral to them within the hour and all was good. I thanked her for her help and moved on.

Here’s a shocker for you. It was not the number to a Hematology clinic at all. It was to a reception desk at a hospital. They didn’t even have a hematology clinic there. I looked up the name of the clinic and called that way. They hadn’t received a referral from my insurance and that they didn’t even take referrals that way. It had to come directly from the doctor’s office that had referred me along with my records. Blood pressure rising.

I called the hematology clinic on post. I believed they were the ones to start the referral seeing as how I had spoken to the lady that offered the Oct. appointment. They weren’t the ones to start the referral. Their front desk had never even heard my name before. The guy I spoke to said I needed to speak to the doctor that originally started the chain. I have no idea what the ER doctor’s name was and I can’t find anything that looks familiar on any of my documents.

I called my insurance again. This time I got Sue, a sweet Southern lady. Sue was great. I explained what was going on. She called the number I was given by the first lady and got the same response from the hospital. She was confused as to how the first lady got through to confirm that the number was correct. Um, maybe she just put me on hold and pretended to call? That one seems pretty obvious to me. Anyways, she tried a bunch of clinics before she got one to actually answer their phone. She put in a new referral and I was good to go.

I called and gave my info to someone at that clinic and was told to fill out all my paperwork online and then call back to make an appointment. Excellent! I can do that. I called back and (sigh) they don’t have me in the system. She asked my name and birth date a couple of times. I’m pretty sure I have those two things down pat. She finally figured out what was wrong. Someone started my chart with the wrong birthday. She would need to have IT fix it before she could move forward. It would be 48 hours.

All along these days my stomach pains were getting worse. I could hardly eat a meal without being in pain. I emailed my doctor and asked for a referral to Gastroenterology. I told him that I couldn’t wait until the next time I was able to see him for him to get the referral started because then I would have to wait probably a couple more months after that. He got back to me a couple days later saying that he had put in the referral for an off-post doctor.

Due to the infuriating experience with getting appointments, Jason offered to help. He had been deployed with a surgeon from my hospital and made contact with him to see if he could do anything to get me in. He said I was to be expecting a call.

I waited for the call, but still went ahead with getting appointments through the referrals. This round went much more smoothly. I had both specialties lined up. I had the routes to get to the offices in downtown San Antonio planned out and my sick leave approved by my boss.

Life moved on.

Brother turned 16. He’s kinda past the fun cake stage of life, but he did come up with a request for clover shaped cake.

Thank you for reading part two. A lot of frustrating moments happened, but help does come through.

To continue on to Part 3, click here.