The start of a long road

The horrible weather January 7th allowed me a brief respite from reality. If you can't get out, you can't very well make an appointment.  That, and the fact I could have been arrested made the decision easier.  They delayed it until today, January 9th.  Fretful night of sleep wrapped around dreams so real I could see the colors.  You wake up in a cold sweat and then the mind starts working.  Sleep won't come. I grab the laptop and lean up in bed hoping for some diversion.  People and places and things come back to you that you haven't thought about for years.  You hunt for them, you wonder how they are, what they are doing?  Finally sleep came but it wasn't sound.

The next day I hopped in the car and was on my way. My wife couldn't join me as her health is not good. Going into something like this you don't want to be alone but you pull up your cowboy boots and head on in.  When I entered I was struck by the sheer number of people, all obviously in various points in their treatment and sitting in the waiting rooms.  The stack of papers I had to fill out was like a small book.  Again my insurance cards were scanned. Again I answered the same questions I had answered just a few days before at SJMC and will do many, many times before this is over.  The old systems analyst and database programmer in me kicks in and I want to dig in and redesign the flawed systems functioning in every medical establishment I have been in over the last few weeks.  Now I see why medical treatment is so expensive.  How the nurses, doctors, and various support personnel live with this I don't know.

You look at each person in the waiting room, you look for smiles, but they are few and far between.  You realize then that what before had been something you thought you knew, you were clueless. You hear terms all the time but you find out you don't really know what they mean.  I watch the TV, some silly talk show with endless yapping about what I don't know.  You hear your name called and you meet your first person that you will become intimate friends with over the period of your treatment.  Lots of technical talk, lots of what we have planned, and one good thing. Doctor Ansari said that based on what they saw in the various tests that there is room to do what they have to do without destroying my rectum but the final decision is up to my surgeon, Edward Delledonne. Definitives is all I want. Something definite!  The next is my radiation doctor Chan.  Young man, starting to silver in his hair, professional and to the point. There are obvious tests he makes, some degrading, some not so. However, they have a common goal and that is to save my life. You look at yourself in the mirror and you try to picture what you will look like a few months down the road.  You pray, you tear up, you want to throw things but what good would that do.