Thank God It's Monday!!!

Well this was certainly not a weekend that I would like to repeat. Just too much happening.

The weekend started out okay because I thought I would get an early start to it. The only problem was that I had to suffer through an MRI and my pre-op blood work to get there. Everything is fine when I leave the office and make my way over to the hospital. I find my way around the labyrinth that is Georgetown University Hospital and get to the MRI department. At that point I am handed a clipboard with some forms to fill out. Now, I'm no genius, but doesn't it seem a little bit weird that you have to fill out a variation of the SAME EXACT FORM every time you go to another part of the same hospital??? Wouldn't you think that they would have all that information on one central server somewhere? Or at least be able to share the information between each other so that we, the patients, don't have to suffer through the stupid things every time we show up? On the other hand, maybe they just know that they will be hopelessly behind schedule and this is just a ploy to keep you occupied for 15-20 minutes. I don't know...but if that is the reason, it's a lame one because I bring my own Sports Illustrated to while away the time.

Anyway, on this particular Friday, they were hopelessly behind schedule. My appointment was supposed to be at 12:15. By 12:45 I was wondering if they had forgotten about me (which they do unless you forget to fill out one of the forms, which I did) until the guy at the desk barked my name and informed me that my paperwork was "insufficient." As this is happening, I notice a guy being wheeled in ahead of me for his MRI and I am soon thereafter informed that things are considerably delayed. At this point, I tell them that I had another appointment at 1:15 for my pre-op and I really needed to get the ball rolling here at MRI so that I wouldn't be bumped from my other pre-op appointment. With that new knowledge in hand (again, why not a shared system so that they would already know that?), they suggest that I go over to my pre-op and have that done first. Well, after I wander around lost for almost 10 minutes, I ask someone where the GUMC Testing Center is and they look at me like I escaped the mental ward. By the time I asked the fourth person, I was feeling like I had escaped from a mental ward. I mean here I am at one of the best cancer hospitals in the world, and the paid professionals don't know what I'm talking about??? The only thing that is saving my sanity is that I have the appointment card in my hand and it clearly reads: GUMC Testing Center. By the time I actually get there, it's 1 p.m. and I'm fifteen minutes early for my appointment...until they hand me the biggest stack of forms yet! Slightly annoyed, I finished up the forms in record time and give them back to the secretary who delivers them to the admitting officer or nurse or whatever who date stamps the forms and then returns them to the secretary who takes them back to the nurses who will be going over all the pre-op stuff and sticking me with needles, etc. And I thought the bureaucracy in government was bad!

Just then I remember that I'm supposed to go back to the MRI department to let them know that they can see me at pre-op right now and so I'll come back later. At the MRI department, they tell me that they are ready for me now and it must be right now because or else a bigger delay later. So I go back to the GUMC Testing Center and tell them that my MRI that was scheduled for 12:15 is finally ready for me at 1:45. Luckily, the scan itself was very uneventful...just long. If you have never had to lie down, almost completely motionless, with an IV in your right arm and a "panic button" in your left hand and a clearance of about 3 inches from your face to the top of the tube you are in for 45 minutes...well, you're just letting the best in life pass you by! Suffice it to say, it is not one of the most favorable positions I have found myself.

So after the MRI, I'm headed back to pre-op where the nurses go over all my...you guessed it, paperwork and ask me questions about medical history...blah blah blah. Thankfully, the nurses realized that it had been a very frustrating afternoon for me and were very sympathetic to the fact that I had gone through all the aforementioned activities and was going to be going through a lot more...like, ummmm, surgery perhaps? So they helped me out and asked me how I was feeling and then stuck me with a needle and then gave me cranberry juice with saltine crackers. It actually was the best-tasting food I'd had in a long time because I was SO hungry. I had earlier figured I would get a late lunch after my last appointment ended before 3, but now it was about 4:30 and time for an early dinner! Anyway, the snacks tasted great and before I knew it I was done and headed back over the Potomac to go home for the weekend.

It wasn't long before I received from my mother that my dad had been admitted to the hospital for pressure in his chest. The next day it turned to severe pain and they started running tests and what not. Finally, today, the doctors performed an angiogram and found one of the vessels in his heart 100% blocked which they fixed with a stent--a relatively easy procedure. Luckily, no heart attack, or myocardial infarction for you medicine geeks out there.

So fortunately, the weekend ended on a good note...my dad got a good Father's Day gift from the Man upstairs and I got to see Batman Begins (good flick, by the way). There was a ton more stuff that happened during the weekend--both good and bad--with many having frustrating repercussions, but you'll have to wait for a more complete update on that because I'm so tired. I'm always tired these days.