Duke Clinics Make My Head Hurt

Today was a long morning and early afternoon at the Duke Clinics.  Before I get to specifics of what the assorted doctors had to say, please indulge me and allow me to complain.  And before you say anything, I am well aware that I am complaining a lot lately.  Believe me, Joe points out my complaining constantly. First, we arrived for his oncology appointment early....and by early I mean 7am for the 7:30am appointment.  Hoping against hope that they would call him in early for his blood work......they didn't.  At 7:30am, he was called for that.  First hope of the day dashed.  We did get back to see Leigh around 8:15am so we were very hopeful.  Sure enough, Leigh was back there on time (thank you Leigh) and we were out at 9am with only 1 floor to go up for Joe's 9:15am appointment with the surgeon, Dr. Lagoo.  We got there at 9:05am., again early.  Unfortunately we were still sitting in the waiting room at 10:15am.  Second hope dashed.  We were called back shortly thereafter and did not have to wait in the exam room for long before a doctor, not THE doctor, came in for questions and an exam, with a med student tagging along.  After this exam, they left, we waited 15 minutes, they came back for more questions and left again.  At 11:30am Dr. Lagoo arrived, spent time talking with us, asking questions, answering questions, and examined Joe.  We left there at 11:50am to go to Joe's 11am chemo appointment. Yes that's right, we are leaving 50 minutes after we were supposed to be there.  Needless to say, they don't hold your place in line if you are not there on time.  So at 12:15pm, 1 hr and 15 minutes from when we were supposed to have started, Joe is buzzed back into the infusion center.  As always they get right to work and by 1:15pm we were out of chemo.  We had a prescription from the surgeon to fill that required us to go the the basement via the yellow elevator to the "Brace Shop", yes ladies and gents they have a department called the Brace Shop.  After waiting 45 minutes in the waiting room, Joe went and asked how much longer we would have to wait.  The reply, not much longer, the person you will need to see is at lunch.  Joe asked for the prescription back and we left.  I took Joe home and finally got to the office at approximately 2:35pm.  Needless to say, not much of a work day for me. My plan was for about 12:30 at the latest.  Third hope dashed....I guess you could say 3 strikes and we were out.

Ok, now for the details.  The oncologist was pleased with Joe's blood work as usual but did inform us that his potassium was low, so now he has another set of pills to take.  We no longer have a medicine cabinet, we just moved all the meds to one of the kitchen cabinets.  They can hold a lot more.  The appointment with Dr. Lagoo, the surgeon, went very well.  Along with the resident they took more than 45 minutes with us, discussing Joe's hernia, what surgery would mean, how it would effect his chemo schedule, quality of life issues and generally asking and answering every question we had and what we had hoped for the previous week but didn't get from Dr. "He whose name shall not be spoken".  However, Dr. Lagoo does agree with said un-named doctor that surgery right now is not the best option.  There is no guarantee that the surgery could be done laporascopically and if not, Joe would be looking at 6-8 weeks without being able to have chemo treatments, which is not optimal.  She did suggest that he get a binder (think girdle not 3-ring) to wear around his mid-section to add support as well as keep the hernia from coming out so far.  Besides the extra support it will also cosmetically help disguise or hide the hernia.  The down side, it's hard to keep his pants from sliding down with the binder on, so LOOK OUT FOLKS!   You might be seeing more of Joe than you would want to. Joe also got a prescription for something to help him sleep on chemo nights which have proven difficult for him because of the steroids they give him during his chemo infusion.

The plan as it stands now is for Joe to finish this cycle of chemo, 1 more week. Have his week off and then do his next 3 week cycle and then get a new CT scan to see how the tumor is doing.  Hopefully it will show more shrinkage like the last scan, but at the very least it will give us an idea of how the tumor is behaving should there come a time when he does have to have the hernia surgery.  So for now, we continue on our merry way with the same course of treatment without interruption.  Dr. Lagoo was glad to have gotten the opportunity to see Joe and go over the case with him so that if at some future date the surgery does become necessary, she will know his entire history and be prepared.

As for Duke Clinics making my head hurt.....one granola bar and a cup of coffee is not enough for me to live off of for 10 hours.  Combine that with waiting, sitting (makes other areas hurt) and lots of white coats and your head would hurt too!

Thanks as always to everyone's prayers, thoughts and concerns.  We love all of you for it.

P.S.  Joe just piped in that I should add that even with the long days and my head hurting we are very grateful for the care that everyone at Duke has given him.