Appointment 12 - Of course it would happen to me!

Wow. I had the strangest doctor's appointment of my life today.

But first, let me tell you about my morning! I had big plans to kick that 7 mile run's ass today. Remember two weeks ago when I hobbled through the last 5 miles? Wow. Was that only 2 weeks ago? When I actually thought I had cancer and had my radiation oncology consultation? It truly seems like months ago. Anyway, I woke to a thunderstorm, so I decided to run at the gym instead. But it takes 10 laps on the gym track to run a mile and I very quickly suffer from boredom, so I only lasted about 3.3 miles. When I left the gym it was no longer raining, so....  I decided to try to run around the lake. (3.7 miles - how convenient to get to an even 7!) Please, with all I've been through, please let this be a good run, I kept thinking. Well, I made it around with only a slight knee twinge. Looks like I may be able to up my mileage after all!

Anyway, after lunch Lisa and I drove to Piper for what could be our last time for awhile. Again, I got a wrist band (another souvenir) and the nurse checked me in. Wow, she said. I just looked at your path report and, well, it's good, right? Although I imagine that emotionally it's probably been hard. Yeah, I acknowledged. Yeah it has been. Does it happen often? I asked. That the diagnosis would change like this? No, not often at all, she replied. I told her that I had a lot of questions for the surgeon, so she might want to prepare her.

Not long after, the surgeon came in, also with a sort of sheepish look. Hey, how are you doing? Fine. The incision's healing well. I didn't even need much pain medication. I sort of had a little speech planned out and I think I mostly pulled it off, and more importantly, without crying. Because that would be disastrous. Who would really listen to a crying patient? It would be so distracting! The gist my speech is: Today is the 10 week anniversary of my very first mammogram, and I tell you, I would never had dreamed I'd be sitting here today having gone through so much. I had a month of not knowing what I had, and then 5 weeks thinking I had cancer. It has been a pretty traumatic experience. Life changing. And some qualities I have that are great in other situations, may not always serve me well in this situation. I am very analytical, I think in many shades of grey, and I have no patience. I've learned a lot about myself and my friends and family, blah bla blah (I really did say blah blah blah!), but I also learned how to be a patient. You and all of the other staff are on my side and you only want what's best for me, but at the end of the day you go home to your lives and I'm left with mine. I have learned that I need to be my own strongest advocate, because nobody can care as much about me as I can. I feel like I've allowed myself to be led blindly through this process, because I didn't know anything about it. But now I need to take charge of my care and demand the best for myself. The surgeon nodded in agreement. So, I said, I would like to send the slides to a third pathologist for one more opinion. Absolutely reasonable, she replied. And I want you to be a part of that process, I said. No problem. We'll do what you want.

She also (and I will interject here by saying that my opinion of her went up 1000% today) owned up to the fact that everybody's human and can make mistakes. The doc even acknowledged how much it would have sucked if I had actually had a mastectomy for the alleged DCIS. Um, yeah! Although lucky for me, I didn't even consider it.

Then (and here's the surprising part), she asked if we wanted to meet with the director of the lab! Really??!! Of course we would!! Wow! So she spent quite a bit of time trying to get a hold of the head pathologist (the lab is in the basement of the building). Then, after hearing that we wanted to talk, they started re-cutting the tissue samples so that the first pathologist could re-read them - this may have been the first she heard about the whole situation. Right then and there! So they offered that we could wait 30 minutes for that to all get done, or to schedule another appointment where we could actually go down to the lab AND SEE THE SLIDES OURSELVES on a teaching microscope! How cool is that??? I'm not sure they would have offered that part if we weren't veterinarians. So of course (even though I am impatient), we elected to schedule an actual meeting/pathology slide review for later. Because of our work schedules, Lisa and I couldn't both be there until 2 weeks from today. Interestingly, it is the day I was to start my radiation therapy.

Anyway, because I asked, she gave me the name of the best oncologist she knew. I will schedule an appointment with him after the third opinion pathology report is back. Also, I need to have a breast exam in the fall (as part of my physical), and a mammogram/breast exam at Piper next spring. Then every six months after that I will probably have an alternating mammogram or MRI until I am through menopause. Wow, a whole year without a mammogram! Being that I've had 6 mammograms (plus the breast MRI) in the past 2 months, I think it is a well-deserved break.

I also want to add that even though this experience was rather painful in so many ways, I have had some wonderful interactions with the medical team, starting with my first mammogram up in Maple Grove. And the people at Piper have been especially awesome. Even though it's a drive and I have to pay for parking, I feel it's worth it to get that kind of care.

And you know what the other surprising part of the appointment was? I asked the surgeon if this kind of error or change in diagnosis or whatever happens often and she said No. It has actually never happened to a patient of hers in her ENTIRE CAREER. So, yeah, of course it would happen to ME.