Not a Man-Eater but a Bone Eater

I'm back from my whirlwind trip and I'm exhausted. What I'm doing up at 12:30am is beyond me but since I can't sleep I decided to blog about my NYC trip. I got to NYC on Monday after 8 hours of traveling and 3 airports. Yuck. Seeing that I'm getting chemo I was scrubbing my hands every 2 minutes. I was deathly afraid that I was going to pick up something from the millions of people in the city or on the planes with their recycled air. I was NEVER one of those people before this but extra precautions are a good thing.

So what happened as a result of my meeting? A few good things, a few bad things and a few annoying things. I'll start by saying that I'm glad I went and saw a doctor who has seen (in his words) "dozen of these cases". In Ohio I can only find doctors who have seen a "handful of these cases". Relief.

I'm tired so I'll make some quick lists and maybe comment later when I'm not as exhausted.

Things I did not like

1. Seriously, when will doctors look at slides before the patient comes into the office. I was annoyed that they've had my path slides for weeks and didn't look at them yet. He also didn't look at my MRI pictures until I was in the office.
2. He swears the tumor doesn't eat the bone
3. Since he hadn't seen the slides/MRIs prior he couldn't comment on if it the desmoid tumor was growing. **Hello** I flew from Ohio and you can't answer my #1 question?!?

Things I did like:

1. He was nice to my parents and explained everything in detail to them about the tumor. He also said I made good decisions w/my health so far.
2. He said that I was tolerating the side effects of methotrexate and vinblastine well and if its working to continue
3. He recommended a back-up drug if the methotrexate/vinblastine isn't working (doxil)
4. He swears the tumor doesn't eat the bone (yup, it's on both lists)
5. Lastly, he had a plan for my bone and the hole that exists

So overall, good visit. I wish he was more prepared. That's my biggest stink about medical anything. They come to big meetings with no background on you. If I showed up for my big Marketing meeting with nothing and asked everyone to hold while I reviewed the information, I would be fired.