Hospital time
The other day (Tuesday, June 14, Flag Day) my wife’s port was to be installed at Strong Hospital.
Be at Strong Radiology at 10:30 a.m.
My wife has cancer, but supposedly it’s not fatal.
It’s treatable.
Actually, she has two cancers: -a) Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, and -b) metastatic breast-cancer.
The Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma appeared about three years ago as a hard tumor in her abdomen.
That was poofed with chemotherapy.
The metastatic breast-cancer did not have a primary site; it never appeared in her breasts.
It was first noticed in her bones, where breast-cancer metastasizes.
We knocked that back with Femara®, the trade-name for Letrozole.
Femara is an estrogen inhibitor. Her breast-cancer was estrogen-positive.
Her breast-cancer just about disappeared.
A port is a gizmo to infuse chemotherapy, etc.
It avoids setting up an intravenous, poking around for veins.
It’s under her skin, and is also a so-called “Power Port.” It can flow great volumes of medication.
Poking around for veins has been getting harder and harder.
Especially now that my wife has lost weight.
Once six pokes were needed to set up an intravenous.
Pokes were often excruciatingly painful.
Just recently my wife was near death — in my humble opinion.
We had to bash people over the head to get Wilmot Cancer Center (“will-MOTT;” as in the applesauce) to realize my wife was in bad shape.
We’re doing fine; my wife seems much better, more herself.
She was hospitalized at Strong, and during hospitalization a PICC-line was installed.
A PICC-line is also a way to more efficiently infuse chemo, and avoid intravenous.
But it has outside connections, which can become infected.
A port is all inside. It’s accessed by a needle.
Both have a tube direct to her heart.
The port was much more complicated than we expected.
But it’s safer; it’s not subject to infection.
Our cancer-doctor was leery of PICC-lines, and we were too.
So out it came.
Making a 10:30 appointment at Strong is leave our house at 9:30 or so. It takes at least 45 minutes to drive to Strong; often longer if it’s NASCAR rush-hour. Another 10 minutes to park.
For that reason, I took my wife to the main entrance, she got out, and I went to park the car.
That made it possible for her to check in at Radiology about 10:25.
I arrived there myself about 10:35-40; we were now on hospital time.
About 10:55 my wife was called and directed to a bed in Radiology.
“What are you here for?” she was asked.
I thought this stuff was supposed to already be known.
Reminds of my visit to a dentist where an aid said I was there for extractions.
“You’re not extracting anything,” I screamed.
“Two crowns, and that’s it. You can just put your extracting tools back in the drawer.”
(No wonder the wrong knee gets replaced, or a good leg amputated. —Suppose I was unable to fend for myself?)
My wife’s port would be installed, and I would wait in the corridor.
A slew of other errands were planned for our return, including my visit to a doctor in Bloomfield to determine if a stubbed little toe should be x-rayed; that was at 3:30 p.m.
Hours passed. (I had brought along magazines.)
Finally about 12:45 I realized my doctor’s office was out-to-lunch 1-2 p.m., and after 2 p.m. was too late to cancel my appointment — I couldn’t gamble.
I called the doctor’s office and rescheduled my toe appointment for the following day.
(That presented possible conflicts, like picking up a loaner so our car could be serviced, and having a screen-door installed at 4 p.m., but all that could be done, which I discovered when I got back home. I’d had to wing it; I didn’t have our schedule with me.)
Almost immediately I was called back to Radiology; my wife’s port had been installed — so I probably coulda made the 3:30 appointment, but it woulda been a rat-race. It would take an hour just to return from Strong; plus there were all the discharge instructions — hospital time.
Two o’clock passed, more instructions. Forms to fill out, etc.
Have we gotta register this thing, just like a new toaster?
“We also have to check your port before it can be used; that’s a week from today, next Tuesday 6/21.”
“Wait a minute,” I shouted. “That’s a conflict. Chemo is supposed to be infused that day. We’re supposed to be here at 9 a.m.”
“Simple,” the nurse said. “Just be here at 8, and we’ll check it out.”
“Now it’s 4 a.m.; 9 a.m. was 5 a.m.!” I said.
“We’re comin’ from West Bloomfield. It takes at least 45 minutes to get here; and another 10 to park.
I know how it works. To eat breakfast and make a 9 a.m. appointment I gotta get up at 5 a.m.”
“We can work around your schedule...... Get here about 8:30,” said the nurse apologetically.
“That’s 4:30 a.m.”
“We’ll check your port, and then Wilmot can use it. But first I gotta get their authorization.”
“That’s Wilmot, another part of Strong, and never will Radiology and Wilmot be on the same page. Um, perhaps Wilmot shoulda known ya needed to approve that port before they could use it.”
We waited for a call-back from Wilmot; more minutes passed.
Windows were closing, and by now our dog had been alone in the house the longest ever, over five hours.
An IRS refund-check I wanted to deposit looked impossible if the bank closed at 3 p.m. — they didn’t, 5 p.m.
We also needed supper vegetables, another 10-15 minutes for our dog to languish.
We were finally released about 3:15 — “Hex-KYOOZE me, but I was expecting half the day, not the entire day.”
Released from Radiology, “should we do the steps or the elevator?”
We took the steps.
Toward the hospital lobby I went into a rest-room, and upon exiting found my wife in a wheelchair being attended by all-and-sundry, a medical-emergency, as it were.
She had gone lightheaded, probably from the steps and anesthesia, but was kept from falling.
Aids were called, a gigantic gathering of concerned medical people — people that wanted to check her out.
Add 10-15 minutes.
“She looks normal to me,” I declared (and she did).
“I just wanna get outta here,” she said. “And I just wanted to be normal, which meant the steps — but I guess I couldn’t.”
“She ain’t gettin’ outta that wheelchair until I get our car.”
“Where’s your car?” a doctor asked.
“In the parking-garage,” I said.
“So how ya gonna do this?” the doctor asked.
I spit out a few words, and said I’d had a stroke; that what I said might be erratic.
“First we take the elevator to the second floor, I wheel her out to the parking-garage, I get the car, and drive around to pick her up.”
Finally out about 3:30.
Yes, I’m exasperated — I guess it’s because I drove Transit bus.
• “Strong Hospital” is one of three large hospitals in the Rochester area.
• We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester. Adjacent is the rural town of East Bloomfield, and the village of Bloomfield is within it.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, and it slightly compromised my speech. (Difficulty finding and putting words together.)
• RE: “I guess it’s because I drove Transit bus.......” —For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS), the transit-bus operator in Rochester and its environs. My stroke ended that.
Be at Strong Radiology at 10:30 a.m.
My wife has cancer, but supposedly it’s not fatal.
It’s treatable.
Actually, she has two cancers: -a) Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, and -b) metastatic breast-cancer.
The Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma appeared about three years ago as a hard tumor in her abdomen.
That was poofed with chemotherapy.
The metastatic breast-cancer did not have a primary site; it never appeared in her breasts.
It was first noticed in her bones, where breast-cancer metastasizes.
We knocked that back with Femara®, the trade-name for Letrozole.
Femara is an estrogen inhibitor. Her breast-cancer was estrogen-positive.
Her breast-cancer just about disappeared.
A port is a gizmo to infuse chemotherapy, etc.
It avoids setting up an intravenous, poking around for veins.
It’s under her skin, and is also a so-called “Power Port.” It can flow great volumes of medication.
Poking around for veins has been getting harder and harder.
Especially now that my wife has lost weight.
Once six pokes were needed to set up an intravenous.
Pokes were often excruciatingly painful.
Just recently my wife was near death — in my humble opinion.
We had to bash people over the head to get Wilmot Cancer Center (“will-MOTT;” as in the applesauce) to realize my wife was in bad shape.
We’re doing fine; my wife seems much better, more herself.
She was hospitalized at Strong, and during hospitalization a PICC-line was installed.
A PICC-line is also a way to more efficiently infuse chemo, and avoid intravenous.
But it has outside connections, which can become infected.
A port is all inside. It’s accessed by a needle.
Both have a tube direct to her heart.
The port was much more complicated than we expected.
But it’s safer; it’s not subject to infection.
Our cancer-doctor was leery of PICC-lines, and we were too.
So out it came.
Making a 10:30 appointment at Strong is leave our house at 9:30 or so. It takes at least 45 minutes to drive to Strong; often longer if it’s NASCAR rush-hour. Another 10 minutes to park.
For that reason, I took my wife to the main entrance, she got out, and I went to park the car.
That made it possible for her to check in at Radiology about 10:25.
I arrived there myself about 10:35-40; we were now on hospital time.
About 10:55 my wife was called and directed to a bed in Radiology.
“What are you here for?” she was asked.
I thought this stuff was supposed to already be known.
Reminds of my visit to a dentist where an aid said I was there for extractions.
“You’re not extracting anything,” I screamed.
“Two crowns, and that’s it. You can just put your extracting tools back in the drawer.”
(No wonder the wrong knee gets replaced, or a good leg amputated. —Suppose I was unable to fend for myself?)
My wife’s port would be installed, and I would wait in the corridor.
A slew of other errands were planned for our return, including my visit to a doctor in Bloomfield to determine if a stubbed little toe should be x-rayed; that was at 3:30 p.m.
Hours passed. (I had brought along magazines.)
Finally about 12:45 I realized my doctor’s office was out-to-lunch 1-2 p.m., and after 2 p.m. was too late to cancel my appointment — I couldn’t gamble.
I called the doctor’s office and rescheduled my toe appointment for the following day.
(That presented possible conflicts, like picking up a loaner so our car could be serviced, and having a screen-door installed at 4 p.m., but all that could be done, which I discovered when I got back home. I’d had to wing it; I didn’t have our schedule with me.)
Almost immediately I was called back to Radiology; my wife’s port had been installed — so I probably coulda made the 3:30 appointment, but it woulda been a rat-race. It would take an hour just to return from Strong; plus there were all the discharge instructions — hospital time.
Two o’clock passed, more instructions. Forms to fill out, etc.
Have we gotta register this thing, just like a new toaster?
“We also have to check your port before it can be used; that’s a week from today, next Tuesday 6/21.”
“Wait a minute,” I shouted. “That’s a conflict. Chemo is supposed to be infused that day. We’re supposed to be here at 9 a.m.”
“Simple,” the nurse said. “Just be here at 8, and we’ll check it out.”
“Now it’s 4 a.m.; 9 a.m. was 5 a.m.!” I said.
“We’re comin’ from West Bloomfield. It takes at least 45 minutes to get here; and another 10 to park.
I know how it works. To eat breakfast and make a 9 a.m. appointment I gotta get up at 5 a.m.”
“We can work around your schedule...... Get here about 8:30,” said the nurse apologetically.
“That’s 4:30 a.m.”
“We’ll check your port, and then Wilmot can use it. But first I gotta get their authorization.”
“That’s Wilmot, another part of Strong, and never will Radiology and Wilmot be on the same page. Um, perhaps Wilmot shoulda known ya needed to approve that port before they could use it.”
We waited for a call-back from Wilmot; more minutes passed.
Windows were closing, and by now our dog had been alone in the house the longest ever, over five hours.
An IRS refund-check I wanted to deposit looked impossible if the bank closed at 3 p.m. — they didn’t, 5 p.m.
We also needed supper vegetables, another 10-15 minutes for our dog to languish.
We were finally released about 3:15 — “Hex-KYOOZE me, but I was expecting half the day, not the entire day.”
Released from Radiology, “should we do the steps or the elevator?”
We took the steps.
Toward the hospital lobby I went into a rest-room, and upon exiting found my wife in a wheelchair being attended by all-and-sundry, a medical-emergency, as it were.
She had gone lightheaded, probably from the steps and anesthesia, but was kept from falling.
Aids were called, a gigantic gathering of concerned medical people — people that wanted to check her out.
Add 10-15 minutes.
“She looks normal to me,” I declared (and she did).
“I just wanna get outta here,” she said. “And I just wanted to be normal, which meant the steps — but I guess I couldn’t.”
“She ain’t gettin’ outta that wheelchair until I get our car.”
“Where’s your car?” a doctor asked.
“In the parking-garage,” I said.
“So how ya gonna do this?” the doctor asked.
I spit out a few words, and said I’d had a stroke; that what I said might be erratic.
“First we take the elevator to the second floor, I wheel her out to the parking-garage, I get the car, and drive around to pick her up.”
Finally out about 3:30.
Yes, I’m exasperated — I guess it’s because I drove Transit bus.
• “Strong Hospital” is one of three large hospitals in the Rochester area.
• We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester. Adjacent is the rural town of East Bloomfield, and the village of Bloomfield is within it.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, and it slightly compromised my speech. (Difficulty finding and putting words together.)
• RE: “I guess it’s because I drove Transit bus.......” —For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS), the transit-bus operator in Rochester and its environs. My stroke ended that.
posted by BobbaLew at 6:43 PM
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