The Merits of the Case

Today I saw one of the nurse practitioners at my oncologist’s office for a check up to determine how my body handled the first round of chemo and whether I am ready for the next round on Thursday. The good news is that I am doing well and am ready to go again. Yay.

More good news is that Nicole, the fabulous nurse practitioner, was able to explain last Tuesday’s unexpected and unwelcome relapse. She thought that it was probably because my body crashed as a result of anti-nausea med and steroid withdrawal. I had been so hyped up on all of those drugs from Thursday and then throughout the weekend that my body decided it really liked all that stuff and then punished me on Tuesday for taking it away. She also said that I probably overdid it on Monday when I was feeling better and that the combination of that and the drug withdrawal threw me for a loop. This time I’m going to take a different anti-nausea medicine on Monday and Tuesday (Zofran) to try to prevent the crash I experienced last time. If that doesn’t work, Nicole suggested that I might have to try taking a lower dose steroid on Monday and Tuesday to get me over that post-drug period. At least I get to add another new experience to my roster—drug withdrawal. Just what I always wanted to try. But really I'm happy to know that there is possibly some relief in sight and that I might not have to go through what I went through last Tuesday again.

I found myself silently laughing as I sat in the waiting room today because I was thinking about what I was going to write about today’s visit. I find that I spend a lot of time these days thinking about how I’m going to describe certain feelings or observations about all of this in my next blog post, and today was no exception.

The doctor’s staff seemed to be running a bit behind this morning, so I sat in the waiting room for about 20 minutes before my appointment. One possible explanation for the delay might be that the office was hopping today. The waiting room seats approximately 14 people, and there were 11-12 there at any given time while I was there. Just as one patient would be called back to see a nurse or to get treatment, another one would walk in the door. I was the youngest patient in the waiting room by at least 10 years. There was one girl who was about 17 years old sitting there, but I think she was probably a daughter waiting for one of her parents to finish treatment.

Everyone sat there intently reading their books and magazines and trying not to make eye contact with anyone else. I’ve noticed that strangers don’t interact very often in this particular waiting room. I noted three different women who were quite obviously wearing wigs, which made me wonder once again if I will ever wear mine. The hair just didn’t look real...the texture and shine were not natural looking and the hairlines were certainly a little “off.” I can't help wondering if I would have noticed that these women were wearing wigs if I wasn’t sitting in an oncologist’s waiting room. It’s far from unexpected to see a wig in such a place, so maybe it was only obvious that these were wigs because I was looking for them.

At one of my previous visits, I came to the conclusion that someone on the office staff must like rock music based on the fact that the music being piped over the waiting room music system was several cuts from Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album--and it wasn't the Muzak version. Not exactly your typical medical office music selection. My guess was backed up by one of today's background music songs: the Beastie Boys singing “Fight For Your Right.” I might have been the only person in the room who actually could have sung along. But maybe that song isn’t as incongruous in an oncologist’s waiting room as it seems at first glance. After all, it could be considered a cancer treatment anthem. By putting ourselves through chemo, fighting for our right to party is exactly what we are doing.