Wednesday, April 30, 2008
CANCER JOURNAL - I NEED TO VENT
Please, if you're not up to listening to complaining, skip this post. I really need to complain.
I've just come from my doctor's office--the doctor in Family Practice who is treating my blood clots. Unbelievably he tried to blame me for not knowing what dose of Coumadan they gave me at the hospital! Now he wants me to keep a diary of what dosage I take. It changes every day. And it seems that I'm going to have to go in for repeated blood tests in order to monitor the Coumaden while I'm on chemotherapy. In other words I'm going to be continuing to take rat poison and living on a leash. I think you can guess how I feel about that.
He has no explanation how I could develop another blood clot while taking Coumaden. He does believe that my arm will continue to swell indefinitely because I have had a blood clot there. This is my left arm. It swelled up all the way down into my fingers yesterday when I attempted to run the vacuum and dust. I can no longer wear my wedding ring because of the fear that my fingers will swell and it will have to be cut off. They made that clear at the hospital.
The doctor has no answer for the breakdown in communication at the hospital. He did admit that it broke down.
When I pressed him, he agreed that it was the hospital's responsibility to record what dose of medication they give me, and that the information should be transmitted to him via a file. He apparently does not have that information, and judging by the pressure he was putting on me to keep a log of my Coumaden dosage, he can't get it.
I haven't had breakfast yet. A glass of scotch and water is lunch. I'm beyond angry.
As I told the doctor, I feel like over last weekend I passed from a woman living with cancer to a woman dying from it.
My next appointment with him will be on Friday. At $30 a crack, this is going to get expensive!
I haven't yet had it out with my oncologist. That meeting is scheduled for Tuesday.
I don't have any plan of attack for this situation yet. But every cell of my being is screaming "Nooooooooooo!" right now, and so far the scotch isn't helping.
