March 22, 2011 at M D Anderson

Kelsey, the little shit, has given us all fits but is with us in Houston.  Ok, so I am better with her and Libby than I am without her, but I just don't know where she gets all that hard headness from. LOL

Anyway, we are up at 5 am to make my 7 am appointment to get registered at M. D. Anderson (MDA) from here on out.  We all load up on the Shuttle at 6 am from the Residence Inn to MDA.  We have just passed a good night on the noisiest beds you have EVER seen. ;-)  I will out forms with Milla, meet Rebecca, my scheduler and patient specialist.  Before you get to meet your Dr. at MDA, you meet the nurse that takes your vitals and then get to meet  NP - PAM.  She is my kinda girl.  Straight forward, no holds. She will be my main contact and meeting with me more than anyone else and that is all okie dokie with me.  Of course, Kelsey and Libby are everywhere with me and even recording some of our meetings.

While I am waiting for Dr. Alvarez, David a researcher comes in and asks to talk to me and ask my permission to get extra blood work for some research he is doing.  I say YES, before he can explain what the research is for, and he calls "so bold, you have thrown me off my regular speech."  Poor guy, he hasn't got a clue how bold I can be, but he will learn.  So I sign the paperwork for the blood research he is doing to do early diagnosis of cancer and out he goes.

Finally, I get to meet the the man, Dr. Alvarez.. Cute, Cute, Cute!  And really nice and the accent doesn't hurt either.  He does a great job telling me about their clinic, program and what to expect in the coming days, weeks, months and years of my illness.  Generally, 6 mos chemo, breast and lymph gland removal, reconstruction and maybe more chemo.

Now, when we are thru with all the questions all three of us can think of, and pumped by the wonderful amounts of energy that have come our way, I get to meet Juanita.  Another researcher, she asks for some of my biopsy tissue for specific IBC research and once again there are the signing of papers.

While Rebecca is fighting with the Insurance from hell, Atena, we are sent down to Diagnostics where I meet Jeff, Mr. Dracula, who commences to lay out 20 tubes for all the blood samples and tests that MDA needs.  Pictures coming.  I did pretty good with all the icky stuff until about tube 16 or so and then get a little light headed. ;-) Jeff is great and explains to me that drinking water and maybe eating something would be a good idea.  Funny guy our Mr. Dracula.

All this time, Kelsey, Libby and I have been taking turns carrying around my films from all the previous 5 years of mammo and sonograms.  Back up to Rebecca we go, and she hasn't been very successful on getting me in the next day or so for testing.  But he has been able to get ALL the test scheduled for Next Tuesday the 29th of March.  My next appointment with Dr. A is on Wednesday the 30th, so what the heck.  We will do all that he needs the day before my appointment.  We get to make plans to go home and take a much needed nap on the nosiest beds in the world. ;-)

Libby gets to go to dinner with her nephew and Kelsey and I go to a great little italian place for dinner.  We hit the hay (sure makes more noise that hay) and get off home the next morning.

Jeff, Mr. Dracula, actually a really Nice blood sucker! Ha.