Got home from the clinic late last night after multiple pokes and scans and waiting and waiting and waiting to finally be told “Sometimes cancer just makes your body weird.” That is not a complaint. It’s true. It really does.
I am glad the Oncology folks were concerned enough to refer me to get checked out and I feel so lucky it’s just that I will occasionally have a fat neck sometimes, and maybe I should take it easy riding my bike and try not to sleep on my side so the shoulder on my port side (actually starboard) doesn’t get messed up. I am immensely grateful to the staff at Froedtert’s 24 hour cancer clinic. One of them remembered me from past visits way back in October as the guy that won’t put his shirt back on and won’t wear a gown. This, of course, led to nothing but triggering me to be at my most corny and hammy self throughout the visit. I did keep all my clothes on this time.
Highlights from 5.5 hours at the clinic:
-During an attempt to put an IV in at my wrist because the veins at my elbows are more or less destroyed from months of pokes: “No one else can use this spot. You can only let us use this spot.” (IV failed) “OK other places can use that spot.”
-Me rolling my arms around to show off veins in my upper arms that the nurses in the clinic are apparently not allowed to touch. “I am only allowed to poke you from here *points at elbow* to here *points at hand*” I was doing the show-offs to them as they stood in the hallway talking about me. I don’t think they realized I could see/hear them out there conferring about how to handle my need for multiple simultaneous IV lines to get the scans that were ordered. I got a good laugh making muscles and pointing at my forbidden bicep.
-My veins are *so* fucked they called in the IV Team! The Elite Pokers! Someone rolled in with a mobile ultrasound machine and greased up my arm and found a vein deep down in my forearm with it, and then the most amazing part: I GOT TO WATCH LIVE ON ULTRASOUND WHILE THEY INSERTED A NEEDLE! It was maybe the most sci-fi thing I have personally witnessed happening to me. I am sure other cool stuff has happened but I was mostly unconscious or not allowed to see the images at those moments.
-The transporter that showed up to take me for CT scans of my heart/lungs/fat neck took a look at me and said “want to walk?” and without even thinking about it I agreed. It was a long walk, partly because he took me to the wrong imaging area first. Every single person we saw looked at us like we were space aliens because I was not in a wheelchair or a bed. I got asked multiple times if I was OK to walk (not by the transporter, but by other folks as we passed by or stopped places). He also got yelled at because he took me in to the CT scan area through a shortcut via the employee-only part of the lab. I don’t think that guy is going to get a good employee review, but I was appreciative for the opportunity to not sit still for a little bit.
-The nurse that remembered me heard the story of my deep love of graham crackers after my colonoscopy last year, and brought us graham crackers!
-The NP that pushed the Big Red Button that turns the lights down, while Ellie and I exclaimed that we did not want to push the Big Red Button to turn the lights down even though I suspected the Big Red Button was actually a light switch, and as she did so said “I didn’t push any Big Red Buttons! No one saw a thing!”
-Ellie creating a playlist for the ride home that, as far as I can tell, was just a search for the word Thunder in any song title.
Speaking of Ellie. She came home early in a thunderstorm to escort me to the clinic and make sure I was full of oats and jokes and stayed hydrated throughout this latest wacky adventure. I know I caused her some anxiety with all this, and I am very fortunate to have someone in my life that willingly puts up with all the unexpected madness that occurs as my body adjusts to a new operational status. It can’t be easy, but I haven’t been put in an old grocery bag and posted on a Buy Nothing page for porch pickup yet, and for that I am eternally grateful.
It is Wednesday my dudes. Go outside and dig in some dirt.