6.7.11

AYNSLEY:
A frustrating day for Dad and me; Mom wasn't bothered. At 8am, the ambulance arrived to take Mom to her chemotherapy appointment at 9am. By 10:15, Dr. C. hadn't arrived and none of the procedures had began. At 10:30, one of Dr. C.'s colleagues (who we're not crazy about) came in to explain that since Mom is doing radiation therapy, she can't do the systemic chemotherapy.

This would have been good information to have at anytime before 10:30am. Before 8am would have been even better. At 10:30am, Mom has been sitting in a waiting room for an hour and a half, knowing that she's still got a number of procedures ahead of her. This makes me so angry. Sitting there, uncomfortable, with no answers, the lack of communication between doctor and patient, and between medical colleagues...Dr. C. prescribed the radiation, so he knew full well that the two would overlap. Whether he ignored it, forgot or just didn't care to tell my parents, I don't know. It doesn't matter. It's shit like this that makes me infinitely frustrated with the medical system we have. So I'm seething in NY. But Mom was fine. She got the intrathecal chemo and a bone boosting drug that needs to be administered intravenously, so it wasn't a wasted day to her. Plus, after that was all done, they went to radiation and were out in 15 minutes. And Dr. C.'s colleague is about 8 months pregnant, so we know we won't have to deal with her again anytime soon.

In all honesty, I think Mom was a little relieved not to have the systemic chemo today. The side effects are unpleasant and now she's having radiation side effects; best to let her body deal with one thing at a time.

Though all that echos in my mind is that those tumors are still growing...

The good news is that Mom's stomach was much better today. She still felt a soreness, but it wasn't the extreme sharp pain she's been having for the past few days. We'll take any victory we get.