Cancer X 2 = rethinking priorities

For the last month or so I have been somewhat MIA in the commenting department and for that I apologize profusely. Almost all of what has been published here at PPP was scheduled back in August and the first part of September. In hindsight, that was a wonderful plan as things here have put both me and The Big Guy on an emotional rollercoaster. It all came out of the blue so to speak.

About a month ago, TBG had a routine doctor's appointment but it turned out that a necessary biopsy was scheduled for two weeks ahead. My heart sank when he told me this as of course my imagination runs wild and I immediately fear the worst. Now I had two weeks to worry. After a week went by, I had to have an emergency visit with the gynecologist, (I'll spare you the gory details) had a biopsy done and 3 days before TBG's biopsy I was told that I have uterine cancer and a catscan would be necessary to ensure it hadn't spread to the lymph nodes.  3 days later TBG has his biopsy and then followup visit. Results - he too has cancer but a very slow growing one and nothing needs to be done asap. His doctor was wonderful and I feel very confident he will take excellent care of TBG.

Following Monday - my catscan was done and doctor's PA calls to tell me that lymph nodes look good so surgery would be done by my doctor here in local hospital on a Tuesday and check my calendar for the next several weeks. Phew! Sounds good, let's just get this minor annoyance over with. Still have to go back to doctor to set schedule for surgery. First off, he kept us waiting for an hour, breezed in the door and begins to read the catscan report. Hello, have you not discussed this with the PA? It certainly sounded that way when she called. He then proceeds to tell us the opposite of what the PA did. He doesn't like the catscan, would not "feel comfortable" doing the surgery just in case it had spread to the outer wall and lymph nodes need to be removed - that's "not his area of expertise". He tells me I need to go to Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa.

Needless to say, TBG and I were flabbergasted. Now this is a whole other ball of wax! I had not prepared for this mentally or emotionally. What got my adrenaline going however is when I expressed my annoyance that the PA had called to tell me in essence this will be simple surgery done locally now he's telling me something else, he got on the defensive and told us how wonderful his PA is and that's she's been there for 15 years. Am I missing something here? Am I overly critical? sensitive? persnickety? Somehow, I don't think a PA should take it upon herself to give a patient that kind of info without checking with the doctor first as he makes the ultimate decision. IMHO, she should have just said they got the results back and here's your appointment time to discuss it with the doctor. Needless to say, I don't have too much confidence in him anymore. So sometime this week I will be trekking down to the cancer center to meet with the oncologist/surgical team.

I have several more posts scheduled and one on November 1st is a guest post from Susan at West of Mars. She has a really great post written and I hope you will get take the time to read what she has to say. She has an important charity message in the post. So for the most part, PPP will be on a brief hiatus and when I do return, it may just be as a reader of other blogs. I'm not too sure.

I've missed all of you and all your creative postings.  Once again, I apologize to all those bloggers whose posts I normally comment on. I just haven't had the heart to be floating around the blog world. Other than a few brief appearances at GoodReads, I've been just reading and thinking.

To those who have e mailed me to see if I had fallen off the face of the earth, I am so grateful for your caring and friendship. Several of you already know this and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your kind words, thoughts, prayers and well wishes. You're all such a wonderful community!