By Memorial Sloan Kettering standards we had a whirlwind visit. It’s the first time I’ve seen two doctors on one visit AND I had a bone marrow biopsy, and still was out of there in just over two hours (including cafeteria stop to buy lunch for the road.)
At 11AM I was in the hematology suite, where they very quickly drew my blood, and then prepped me for the bone marrow biopsy. (For neophytes, a bone marrow biopsy is done by sticking a needle into your iliac crest – above your rear end – and pulling out some marrow, and a tiny piece of bone. Probably sounds worse then it is.) I was chatting away with the nurse, who told me she’d assisted at 10,000 bone marrow procedures. Needless to say, she was not a twenty-something nurse.
So Dr. Klimek shows up, does the bone marrow and walks me over to Dr. Zelenetz’ suite. A few minutes later she came back with the results of the cytogenetic studies from the last bone marrow and we discussed those results (normal) as well as my continuing low white counts.
She continues to believe the low counts are simply due to the high dose chemo and follow-up Rituxan therapy. She was again kind of apologetic about the fact that we are in a "watchful waiting" mode. I triply assured her that doing nothing but watching is fine by the Farandas reckoning. Dr. Klimek said "there’s nothing to treat." No pathology beyond the low counts.
So she ordered another dose of neulasta to boost my white blood cells and scheduled me to see her in another month.
I then saw a resident doing an oncology fellowship (nice guy – can’t pronounce his last name – started with an M) who asked me the usual questions, and then met for a few minutes with Dr. Zelenetz. I will be having a CAT scan in three months and then seeing Dr. Zelenetz again. Basically all the two of them said was, "You’re doing very well."
Zelelnetz did voice some concern about my repeated sinus infections (three since Novemeber; I just finished another antibiotic regimen yesterday) and ordered an immunoglobulin study.
and I was done! 12:45 – amazing! Except Brigid was nowhere to be found. She’d parked the car at 11AM after dropping me off, and never caught up with me. I was actually worried, expecially since I called her twice and got no answer. I finally found her over in the hematology area, and she hadn’t turned her phone on.
All in all, no surprises. Things went about as I expected, and no news is good news!
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