After three months of silence, finally a report after yesterday's trip to the cancer center. In the meantime, there had been one visit, but that was just for the blood report, which is always basically within normal limits.
Withdrawing the blood and inserting the IV is now done in the basement of the center where the CT machine is located. It's more efficient that way (and I don't risk having Marci as my phlebotomist). It's rather like a maze in the basement and the one place where waiting isn't particularly pleasant. It's also extremely cold since the machines generate high heat so that the a/c runs continuously and since I'm drinking two large glasses of ice water. For the male patients waiting for a scan, there are just three chairs in a corridor. I cuddled up in my heated blanket, and the magazine selection, happily for me, was nothing but male fashion rags--not exactly intellectual stimulation, but certainly pleasant enough viewing. After nearly an hour, I went in for the scans. I don't have to undress, just slide my jeans down to around my knees and lie on a table which slides me in and out of the machine. First they take scans without contrast; then they add whatever contrast is (and after all these tests I still have no idea) through the IV. There's an immediate metallic taste. A few more scans, and it's over.
For some reason, the cancer center has a horrible cafeteria. Since the building was once the original headquarters for Sprint, it's always rather surprising that the cafeteria is so small. I can't eat for four hours before the scans, but we had brought some cinnamon crisps from Panera, so I wolfed one down and then went outside for a smoke. Yes, I'm aware of the irony of continuing to smoke, even if at a much diminished level, while I'm undergoing cancer treatment.
The next step was seeing Dr. Van, who seems to have made a New Year's resolution to run on time. Quite uncharacteristically but for the second time in a row, he arrived in our room promptly as scheduled. We had some questions to ask him (I've been getting late afternoon headaches, for example), and we were so involved in those that we actually forgot to ask about the results of the tests. He brought them up, however, and they were all good. For yet another three months, the primary tumor has not grown. That was good news indeed, of course, and we'll continue on the current schedule of three weeks on the Votrient, one week off.
The last stop was my hugely expensive (for some reason, the price varies unpredictably between $10,000 and $13,000 a shot) bone-strengthening injection. For another unfathomable reason it has to be scheduled an hour after we see the oncologist, a wait that always seems unnecessary. Almost everyone at the cancer center is very friendly, almost everyone except the woman in charge of these shots. Fortunately, she wasn't there when we arrived, and a friendlier woman got us in early for the injection.
We stopped at Stroud's, the world's best pan-fried chicken restaurant, on the way out of town. Both of us ate way too much, but we both stayed awake for the ride home, though then we promptly crashed for a couple of hours. Even though these trips aren't physically taxing and even though neither of us is a worrier, still, there is something about the uncertainty that takes its toll even when all the news is good.
