Oh My God! I am jerked out of a sound sleep! My cell phone is going completely CRAZY!! I roll over in bed and look at the clock. It is 8:00 A.M. As I am trying to figure out where I am and what is going on, I realize it is Monday morning. The BARRAGE has begun! I pick up my phone and see I have 8 phone calls, all in the span of less than 5 minutes! I am still not even close to being awake, and my mind is already swirling. I have no idea who any of these calls are from. I do not know any of the phone numbers. They are all 831 prefix, so I do know they are from Santa Cruz. I have this sinking feeling that the medical calls have begun. My phone keeps ringing! What the hell? I am trying to ignore my phone, but deep inside I know I cannot put this off. I am going to have to get up and start trying to wade through all of the calls. I really do not want to deal with this! What is the f—ing rush anyway? I just found out I have cancer on Friday. Surely this CANCER hasn’t advanced in just 2 days? But there I go again. I have no idea if this is even possible.
I dressed, trudged downstairs, half-consciously ate my breakfast. My phone is still ringing! It is now only 9:00 A.M. and I have 18 phone messages? What the ???? I really do not want to start this beast in motion. But it looks like I have no choice! Some of the numbers are repeats. Good! But it still looks like I have 10 or 11 separate phone calls to return. There is no time like the present to take the bull by the horns and start the process. So I pick up the phone and listen to all of the voice messages. I decide I should do this first so I can try and figure out who all these people are and what they want. Then I have to prioritize the most important call. It looks like the first call is going to be to the Cancer Center to schedule my biopsy. When I saw the doctor on Friday, she told me I would receive a call to schedule my biopsy sometime the following week. Well, here it is Monday and that call has already come in. So I dial the number. They have an opening on Wednesday afternoon in Santa Cruz. Can I make it? Yup! Nothing scheduled yet for Wednesday. The nurse gives me all of the instructions for the biopsy. Nothing too complicated. Seems pretty cut and dry. A small amount of pain during the procedure, but hey, I have been through worse. I think I can handle this. I continued down the list of calls. One was from the oncologist. One was from the scheduling coordinator, one was from the medical liaison, one from the oncologists nurse, one from the cancer care nurse, one from radiology, one from the blood lab, one from my primary care physician, one from palliative care, one from the insurance coordinator, one from the hospital scheduling, and one from the cancer surgeon. I had never met any of these people, and actually had no idea what most of these people did, and why I needed all of these people in my life. All this calling took most of the morning. By the time I had finished, my entire week was booked with one appointment or another. There is a saying: THERE IS NO REST FOR THE WICKED! Believe me, at this point, I am feeling pretty wicked. I have no idea WHY this is happening to me.
It took
I wish I had never made the next call. Unfortunately, I would have had to make it at some point, but I wish I had waited. This call was to the breast surgeon. I had never met this doctor, knew nothing about him, and had no idea what he was going to tell me.
