Urologist (No, MYologist!)

I've got to preface this with the following information: I count this doctor in the same category as Dr. Umstead. Consider yourself warned!

I had to call the urologist, Dr. Barkley, because the stent he put in (or tried to put in then had to have someone else do it four days later...) was only good for 2-3 months. Finally got an appointment with him on Monday afternoon at 3:45. I'm finally taken back at 4:15. After the preliminary stuff with the nurse, she puts me in a room. The whole time I'm in there, I can hear him talking to someone about his plans for next weekend, laughing, joking, the whole deal. At 4:55 (yes, 40 minutes after I was put in a room) he finally comes in and tells me to fill him in on what's happened since he last saw me. So I tell him. Mind you, all of this information is in all of the many pages of paperwork that I was required to come in early to fill out. He was surprised to hear that I was going through chemo and interrupted with "Are you septic?" I swear to you, I am not joking. The man asked me if I was septic. It took quite a bit of self-control not to reply with some sarcastic comment about being a total idiot and exposing the people who work for him to my toxicity. Ugh.... Anyway, he goes "Well, we're going to schedule an appointment for you to go to the hospital so we can take out the stent that's in there and put in a new one" then gets up to walk out the door a whopping 3 minutes after he came in the room. Whoa, there, buddy, I've got some questions for you! Is it inpatient or outpatient? Am I going under? Do I even need a new stent put in? I mean, you never even looked at me, so maybe the tumor's shrunk enough that I don't need one anymore. And I have a CT scan scheduled for Friday afternoon. Will I be out in time? Or am I going to get stuck in the hospital for five days again because you can't seem to figure out how to get it in? Oh, and how about the horrid pain that I have when I empty my bladder? I'm not even kidding you, by the time I caught him, we were standing in the hallway. He tells me it's outpatient, he'll schedule me first so I should be able to do the CT scan, hopefully I won't have to stay this time, and the pain is from the stent, there's nothing he can do about it. That's it.

So let me just tell you how thrilled I am about this whole situation. I mean, I know that it needs to be done. Friday will be 3 months to the day since I had the first one put in. The last thing I need is to start developing stones around the old one (which is what I was told could happen). If I had more time to play with, I would definitely be shopping around for a different urologist. At this point, though, it really needs to be done, the sooner, the better. I'm just hoping for an easier time this go-round and then the possibility of never having to deal with this guy again...

Round 3 *ding ding*

So, it's been a while since I've been on here because I've been spending every second I could making up for lost time with Chase. Aside from that, things have been pretty uneventful, which has been nice.

Round 3 started off pretty uneventfully. I met with the doctor who said things seemed to be going really well so far. She got me scheduled for a CT scan on March 2 so we can see how the tumor is responding to the chemo. Not going to lie: I'm very excited to know how things are going, but pretty nervous at the same time. After my time with her, I went over to the infusion suite and got all hooked up. It was kind of weird because it was the first time that I was there by myself. I sent Chris to Disney to get some pins that were coming out that he really wanted. It might sound terrible, but it was kind of nice to be there by myself. One of my first meds is Benadryl, so I was able to take a really good nap! Then, I spent some time talking with other patients. I usually don't do that because I'm talking with him. I met quite a few people who were on their last treatment, which was really great to hear! And everyone is just so supportive of everyone else. It's really a great feeling.

Chris came by with lunch on his way back from Disney. Not going to lie: once he got there, I realized that I missed him being there! We ate lunch together, looked through the pins he got and the pins he traded for, and just spent some nice time together.

The really fun part came when it was time for my adriamycin push. For some reason, they weren't getting a blood return from my port. I ended up with two nurses trying to get a return. They had me turning my head, stretching my neck, positioning my arms in all kinds of crazy ways, and nothing! They said that since I'm young, my body may be healing around the port. They said it's an easy fix: just go to the hospital and get some anti-clotting medicine injected into the port. Said it pretty much works like Drain-O (though that's not something I'll be trying anytime soon!) One of the nurses had one last idea: stand up, hunch my shoulders forward, put my head down, and have the other nurse press on the port. Not going to lie: it was not a very comfortable position, but when they were able to get a return, I was NOT about to move! I stood in that position for about 15 minutes while they pushed the adriamycin in. It was actually quite comical:

Friday I went back and got my Neulasta shot, which I have to say is worse than the chemo. The actual shot isn't bad, just a quick injection in my stomach, but the shot stimulates my bone marrow to start making more white cells and it makes me incredible achy. Tylenol helps, but I feel like I move really slowly. We brought Chase with us for the shot because we're usually in and out in a few minutes. Everyone made such a fuss over him! They gave him a car, a balloon, a lollipop... He's going to want to go every time if they keep this up!

Generosity

I can not believe how generous everyone has been through this process. The hat party was amazing in itself, but Corinne Young put together a fundraiser for me to help me pay for my treatments. Today she presented me with all of the cards and donations. I was overwhelmed when she told me the total: $4,000! That takes care of my next two treatments! It is such a relief to have one less thing to worry about. I am just so incredibly thankful to have such wonderful, caring people in my life. Thank you all!!!