I finally heard back from someone about the PET scans and the schedule. Naturally, I realized halfway home that I left all of my notes at work, so here’s what I’ve got from memory.

Basically, the PET scan sucked. It still shows the uptake in my chest, which means there’s still cancer there. What Dr. C wants to do is give me a harsher form of chemo. I’ll be back on the ifosfamide (the one that screwed with my bladder), only this time it will be matched up with gemcytobine (which is either another name for the gemzar I’ve had or something new, depending upon how it’s spelled) and navalbine (or navelbine which is something else that starts with a V but isn’t the “V” in ABVD – it’s something new). The trick to this chemo? I’m going to have to be in the hospital for it.

The nurse practitioner is the one who finally called me back and she said I would be in the hospital 4-5 days as the treatment was being given to me. The two main reasons for the hospital stay are that it’s going to be a rougher chemo than the others I’ve had and because at least one of them is on a really long drip cycle, so they have to keep me there while they give it to me.

When will this fun start? Well, now we’re back into the fuzzy haze of the future. She said it all depends on what the oral surgeons say. Tomorrow when my sandinista gets liberated, I have to ask the oral surgeon approximately how long it will take me to heal. This seems like a strange thing to ask, since people heal at different rates, and I figure that’s what he’s going to tell me. Whatever tentative date he says, I’ll call Yale and give them that date and they’ll set me up for chemo on the very next day. The NP didn’t think I’d need a really long time to heal, estimating that they’d probably be seeing me late next week. If so, that could work out well, since straddling the weekend would mean two less days of work I’d miss.

Of course, getting all of this arranged would have to find a way to throw a wrench in our plans somehow, right? Of course it does! Next weekend is Kevin’s birthday in Boston that Barb was going to be participating in. Naturally, she’s already reserved and paid for a room down there too. Oh boy! So in addition to all of this, she’s a) not going to get a break to have some fun and b) going to have to deal with the hotel people.

So now the question remains: Is it time to fall to my knees, rend my garments and shout up to the heavens “Why God, WHHYYYYYY?” Well, I considered the possibility for a bit, running through my options after the phone call. But come on – have you been reading this site? I’m a badass. Things will happen when they happen as they will happen and I will continue plugging along, proving to cancer who the boss is.

Hint: It’s not Tony Danza.

Okay, here’s the deal. I had my PET scan on Monday. I talkked to my transplant coordinator, who told me she would be off this week. I could call A, who’s covering for her, on Tuesday afternoon to find out the results of the PET scan and find out what my upcoming schedule would be.

Yesterday I called A and she was having computer issues and said she’d call me back as soon as she could access her files again. No return call at work, no return call at home. I get in to work this morning and give her a call.

She is out of the office on Wednesdays.

Would you not assume that exam results are important to a cancer patient and everyone in the immediate vicinity of the cancer patient? Would you not leave a big note somewhere saying “For the love of GOD call this patient ’cause he’s probably going crazy right now!”

So I call the emergency contact person, S, that A leaves on her voicemail. I try to explain to her how this is actually a sort of emergency, since I’m going to be out of work the next two days with the wisdom tooth thing and my boss needs to know if I’ll be in next week since I have projects that have to be handed to someone else if I’m not. Not an “I’m dying” emergency, but an emergency nonetheless since I WAS NEVER CALLED BACK YESTERDAY.

So S checks around and calls me back in a few minutes (learn a lesson, A). She starts out the call with “I’ve found out what’s going on, but you’re probably not going to like to hear this.”

A nurse practitioner is going to be looking at my scan and discussing the results with Dr. C. Why is an NP looking at them and not the doc? Go on, guess.

The doctor is on vacation this week.

Yes, even doctors need vacations, but couldn’t this have been mentioned last week? “By the way, your doctor’s going to be out of the office, so you might have to jump through a bunch of hoops to find out anything.” That’s all I ask is to be informed.

In other news, the bloodwork came back good, so tomorrow the wisdom tooth extraction will proceed. Every time I use the word “extraction,” I picture my wisdom tooth as a sandinista rebel ensconced in a guatemalan gulag. Too ’80s?

Well, after an exceedingly crappy day, I got the verdict on my tooth problems. The old root canal appears to be just fine and while the cavity that was drilled and filled was pretty deep, the endodontist says it should be fine for now. Later on we might need to do something about it if it starts to bother me, but it will get me through the whole stem cell thing.

So where’s all of this pain coming from? It’s the wisdom tooth! The back part of the tooth is chewed up pretty bad and the doc says it’ll be better to just yank it rather than spend the time, pain and money on root canaling it. Plus, between the way the tooth sits in my jaw and the way the decay is, it would be very difficult to do the filling/crown part. The cavity is in the back part of the tooth, so there’s nothing to build against.

Now comes the fun part. Apparently a wisdom tooth extraction is a big deal in the best of circumstances. When you have cancer and you’re going through chemo and you’re about to have your immune system taken offline, it seems to get trickier. The endodontist (Dr. G) I saw was really awesome (I’ve been having great luck with doctors ever since I got cancer. Go figure.) and wants to get this done as soon as possible so I won’t be in pain any longer than necessary and so I can be all healed when I get to the Big Chemo. We have to wait on my bloodwork to come back in line, though. Remember the white blood cell issues? So Monday I’ll be having my usual bloodwork to see where we stand (later in the afternoon, since my PET scan is in the morning).

So Dr. G gets her office to call the oral surgeon to set something up for me on Tuesday. Tell people you have cancer and things get done, lemme tell you. They say they want to bring me in for a consultation because of my medical condition. She tells them they do NOT need to do a consultation because SHE knows it needs to come out and THEY just need to get off their butts and DO IT because we have a special patient here who needs this done NOW!

Well, not now, but after my bloodwork is done. See why I like this doctor?

So they set up an appointment for Thursday morning for the extraction, depending on what the bloodwork on Monday shows. This throws Dr. G into another tizzy. “If you’re getting the bloodwork on MONDAY you need to be seen on TUESDAY! We don’t know what could happen to your levels between Monday and THURSDAY!” When I left, she was going to have a personal chat with one of the oral surgeons once they got back from wherever they were. She’s going to make sure they understand the time pressure, the pain pressure, and…

THE DR. G PRESSURE!!!!

Wow, what a week. All told, from Wednesday through Thursday, I think I was awake for 12-15 hours. Saturday wasn’t much better, though I think it was the first day I was awake more than I was asleep. Sunday we had Bev’s birthday over here at the house and I did pretty well all day, moving from one chair to another. About fifteen minutes before people started getting ready to leave, I just crashed. I was sitting in front of the fireplace and every ounce of strength went out of me. I don’t know if it was obvious enough to cause everyone to leave or if they had just decided it was time on their own. Either way, I discovered that when I hit my limits, it’s like a wall.

My bloodwork was bad on Monday. The white blood count was kind of low, but the AMC (the number of the cells that actually fight the infections) was in the basement. They wanted to see 1500. I had 500. At first, they weren’t going to give me the treatment, but they knew I would be getting Neulasta today, so they went ahead and gave me a lowered dosage of the gemzar. Whatever it takes to keep the treatments going.

Today was a much better day – still really tired, but I stayed awake. I can feel myself crashing, though. It’s not happening just yet, but it feels like it’s a few minutes away. Time to limp over to the bed before it hits, I suppose.