I swear, I cannot catch a break when it comes to doctors and lack of communication. Today we (my mom and I ) at the hosptial expecting to do the scan to see the thyroid function and then go ahead and do the radioactive iodine to kill the thyroid. It seems, however, that was not my doctors orders. It appears that my doctors (yes, I will say all of them at this point because a) I am in a foul mood and b) becuase I feel like they have all failed in one way or another) have a communication problem. They just can't do it well. Or at all. take your pick.
Long story short, we checked into the hospital (I wish I had a picture of the snazzy arm band I get to wear all day today and tomorrow), wait for an hour and finally go back behind the "scary" doors (think movies - taking people into surgery). Then the resident comes in (which, we will get to later how I feel about residents) and we go through a bunch of questions (like what meds are you on, when did you last eat, etc). then he says do you have any questions (which, at this point, I should have just said - go get the doctor in here so we don't have to play telephone back and forth - but I was nice and let him try) and I started rattling some off. Basically resident boy ran in and out of the room going to ask the doctor all my questions - and I didn't really like all of the answers.
Basically, after all of that we figured out that she (my doctor) had only set up the scan - and I would have to wait for the results, then go meet her in the office, then go back to the hospital for the radioactive iodine (which, all of that could take WEEKS). WHICH is not what she had told me before, not what the nurse had told me, not what the hospital had told me when I scheduled it.
At this point I think I started crying....
Now - let me mention that I took the whole week off, my mom missed work today to go with me, and I have had to go off ALL my meds to be able to do this -- which is a complete pain in the ____, and if we don't do it, then I have to stay on these crappy shots till we kill the thyroid. (And did I mention the copay is $50 for a 14 day supply? (read: over $1000 for a 14 day supply retail). And I get ugly bruises all over my stomach because of them.) Plus, emotionally, I just need it to be over with.
So, after all that running around, we got to the point where I could do it tomorrow if my scan comes back where my thyroid is processing the small dose of radioactive iodine they gave me today.
I did the first scan sans radioactive pill and then took the pill and got to go home for a few hours. I went back in that afternoon and did another scan - and the guy that was there that afternoon and I had a chat - he wanted to know why I was so upset this morning so I filled him in. He promised me that he would help me out tomorrow and try to get the doctor to read the scan quickly after we were done, and make sure the doctor got the results to my doctor so we could decide what we could do before I left the hospital - so hopefully we could just knock it all out.
The one thing he did say was that if my thyroid was not "uptaking" appropriately (read: my body doesn't process the radioactive iodine appropriately - and it gets "excreted" out in other ways instead of the thyroid processing it) then we can't do the radioactive iodine at all. he said in those cases you just have to go back on meds, which my doctor already told me my meds were bad and I shouldn't stay on them.
So I started crying again. I feel like I just can't have anything go according to plan.
Then I went home and slept for 2 hours....and my mom took me to my favorite restaurant for my favorite salad. Life is much better now.
we'll see what happens tomorrow. say a little prayer that everything turns out okay (which means in Karen's plan - we get to kill the thyroid. I just hope God's plan is something similiar, or he knows way more than I do (which, of course he does!) and that if we can't kill it that hopefully we are over the hosptial visits and racing hearts, and medicine that isn't working.)
I am headed off to bed...back to the hospital in the morning. Hopefully tomorrow is a much better day than today!
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