Caveats Elucidated, Part One
As promised:
Zach flew in last weekend not only to see me after a four-week hiatus (note that I am employing industry lingo, which is entirely different than corporate-speak), and not only to celebrate the last of a year's worth of Herceptin treatments, but also to be with me for my first meeting with one potential successor to MOSWO.
There is another potential successor to MOSWO. I had a consult with him a couple of weeks ago, but it wasn't a big deal to go on my own, because Zach and I knew him from way back, when he and MOSWO worked at the same institution, and we already knew he was great.
Neither of us had ever met this other doctor, but MOSWO had suggested her as another option, and since I barely tie my shoes without a second opinion these days, I made an appointment. And then Zach booked a plane ticket.
Fast-forward to last Thursday, the day before the appointment—and the night of Zach's arrival. I had been out of the house all day, visiting my dad and going to class and attending mandatory lectures up at the J-school. I got home around 10PM. When I did, the light on my answering machine was flashing. It was a message from a secretary at the cancer center—someone I'd never met.
Apparently, the doctor I was supposed to see the next day was going to be out of the office, and I'd have to reschedule my appointment.
Inconvenient, perhaps, but not the biggest deal in the universe. It wouldn't be hard to coordinate a new appointment with Zach's next visit home. And if it was, if going by myself turned out to be unavoidable, so be it. As far as I was concerned, this was an audition, and I was the casting director. (See? More lingo!)
Then I heard the rest of the message. The upshot? Since the doctor—the doctor of record, that is, at least for the moment—wasn't going to be in, and therefore wouldn't be able to examine me and then write the specific orders, I'd also have to reschedule my treatment.
Until sometime the following week.
After Zach had left.
That did not exactly go over well with me. Nor did the fact that the message was time-stamped 12 hours earlier, especially given the fact that my cell phone number is all over my medical chart, and we were talking about the next day.
It took one message that night and two conversations with the secretary and a conversation with MOSWO's nurse practitioner the following morning to resolve the situation. I am not proud of the fact that I cried during the conversation with the nurse practitioner, to the point where I had to hand the phone to Zach. And by "not proud," I don't mean to imply that I manufactured the tears for purposes of manipulation. I just mean that behaving like a three-year-old with a quivering lip was not my finest, let alone most age-appropriate, moment.
It turns out that the tears played no part in resolving the situation. Deploying the words last and flew in from Los Angeles are what made the difference, I think. In the end, some very nice oncology fellow, to whom MOSWO was a mentor, agreed to examine me and write the orders for the Herceptin.
So we went in, I had blood drawn, the fellow examined me, I had the treatment, and we left. Maybe it would have felt more momentous if MOSWO had been there, or if we'd actually gotten to see the other doctor, or if I hadn't fallen apart a few hours earlier.
I'll never know.
Zach flew in last weekend not only to see me after a four-week hiatus (note that I am employing industry lingo, which is entirely different than corporate-speak), and not only to celebrate the last of a year's worth of Herceptin treatments, but also to be with me for my first meeting with one potential successor to MOSWO.
There is another potential successor to MOSWO. I had a consult with him a couple of weeks ago, but it wasn't a big deal to go on my own, because Zach and I knew him from way back, when he and MOSWO worked at the same institution, and we already knew he was great.
Neither of us had ever met this other doctor, but MOSWO had suggested her as another option, and since I barely tie my shoes without a second opinion these days, I made an appointment. And then Zach booked a plane ticket.
Fast-forward to last Thursday, the day before the appointment—and the night of Zach's arrival. I had been out of the house all day, visiting my dad and going to class and attending mandatory lectures up at the J-school. I got home around 10PM. When I did, the light on my answering machine was flashing. It was a message from a secretary at the cancer center—someone I'd never met.
Apparently, the doctor I was supposed to see the next day was going to be out of the office, and I'd have to reschedule my appointment.
Inconvenient, perhaps, but not the biggest deal in the universe. It wouldn't be hard to coordinate a new appointment with Zach's next visit home. And if it was, if going by myself turned out to be unavoidable, so be it. As far as I was concerned, this was an audition, and I was the casting director. (See? More lingo!)
Then I heard the rest of the message. The upshot? Since the doctor—the doctor of record, that is, at least for the moment—wasn't going to be in, and therefore wouldn't be able to examine me and then write the specific orders, I'd also have to reschedule my treatment.
Until sometime the following week.
After Zach had left.
That did not exactly go over well with me. Nor did the fact that the message was time-stamped 12 hours earlier, especially given the fact that my cell phone number is all over my medical chart, and we were talking about the next day.
It took one message that night and two conversations with the secretary and a conversation with MOSWO's nurse practitioner the following morning to resolve the situation. I am not proud of the fact that I cried during the conversation with the nurse practitioner, to the point where I had to hand the phone to Zach. And by "not proud," I don't mean to imply that I manufactured the tears for purposes of manipulation. I just mean that behaving like a three-year-old with a quivering lip was not my finest, let alone most age-appropriate, moment.
It turns out that the tears played no part in resolving the situation. Deploying the words last and flew in from Los Angeles are what made the difference, I think. In the end, some very nice oncology fellow, to whom MOSWO was a mentor, agreed to examine me and write the orders for the Herceptin.
So we went in, I had blood drawn, the fellow examined me, I had the treatment, and we left. Maybe it would have felt more momentous if MOSWO had been there, or if we'd actually gotten to see the other doctor, or if I hadn't fallen apart a few hours earlier.
I'll never know.
posted by Jody Rosen Knower at 2:24 PM
1 Comments:
Jody,
HOORAY!!!!! I am so glad to read the last treatment is done and that Zach got to be there with you.
And as for the inconvenient tears, I'm sure that's ultimately a good thing too.
I hope your new doctor is someone you can look fwd to seeing.
xo
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