Nashville

Thankfully, Mark's last day of vacation was the day I needed to be at Vanderbilt in Nashville! My how the Lord provides!

We were up with the birds that morning. I think it takes about 4 hours to drive there. And if you know me, you know I must be early! No exceptions! lol

So we got there early and drove around looking for some place other than McDonalds to have breakfast. No such luck, can you believe it?  It was about 6:00 a.m. and the few " breakfast " restaurants we saw weren't even open yet. We tried a jack n the box, no breakfast items, the Burger King wasn't even open yet! We drove around and drove around and guess where we had to finally settle? Yeah, that's right, McDonalds. Boy, were we disappointed! But we had our biscuit and drove on to the clinic.

We tried to sign in, but we were even too early for that! So the receptionist sent us over to the pulmonary department to wait. They must have opened first, I don't know. But we only waited like 1/2 an hour.  Went back with Mark and did my little lung function test. Mind you, I had just had the same tests a week ago with my pulmonologist from UT. Everything went well and the results were good. So off we went back to the reception area.

At the reception area, you sign in, get a stack of papers to fill out and get a beeper thing, then wait for your beeper to go off. It was a nice area, lots of seats, no magazines though. Mark waited a bit then found out where the smoking area was and took off for a smoke. I did see a lady with her daughter. The mom was reading a Bible. I wanted to go say something to her, I don't know why I didn't.  I filled out my paper work then started on my library book.

When the beeper went off, I went up and filled out more forms, payed my $55 co-pay for the office visit and  was sent to wait in the lab area.  I just got my bill today and that office visit that I paid $55 was billed to the insurance company at $500!

Shortly, my beeper went off again, meaning I was next in the lab.  Real nice black girl took my blood. She was very good! Got it on the first try and didn't hurt me! That's a winner in my book. She directed me to my next stop, upstairs to see the actual doctor.

I waited in that area quite awhile, as you can imagine. Pretty much standard waiting area. They did have coffee and granola bars which I thought was nice. It was about 11:00 I guess and we had no prospects of lunch in sight. I had brought a tote bag with some granola bars and cookies. So I munched on a granola bar while I waited.

Finally, they called my name. I went back and answered lots of questions with a nurse. Then back to the waiting room. I got called again. This time I saw the Nurse Practitioner. Ms Clifton. She was very nice, answered my questions in a way I could understand. When she was finished, the doctor came in. He was nice, too. He wanted my numbers down and he was so surprised that Dr I___ had me on revlimid for so long even though my numbers weren't coming down as fast as they should have. He even said Dr I___ almost had me on revlimid too long. That it gets to a point that you can't even have a SCT! I was horrified. I felt let down. I also felt glad that I was in effect "getting a second opnion" without having to offend Dr I____.  Secretly, I was very glad to be talking to another doctor about my case. He did tell me there were several other tests my insurance company required before I could get the transplant, like a mammogram, pap smear, ekg, etc.

When Dr. J_____ was finished, off we went to get a biopsy. Fun. No, not really.

We had about an hour before the biopsy and it was about 2:00 already. We still hadn't had lunch and we were getting snippy with each other and we were both so tired.

We made a bee line for the cafeteria.  It was a nice cafeteria, lots of delicious choices. I had a bbq chicken sandwich that came with cole slaw and something else, I forget. Mark had a Chinese platter. The food was good that both of us got.  It was too much, but it was good.

Ok, tummies full, dispositions better, we headed off to the biopsy waiting area.  I've had a biopsy before so I knew what to expect. It's not bad, totally tolerable.  Except this time.

The lady that did mine, I don't know what she was. I know she wasn't a doctor. She was awful. Nice personality, but awful at biopsy's!  She had to go in twice to get what she needed and that is not fun. I was very very sore for a month after that.

Now that i had a sore backside, it was time to get in the car for the 4 hour drive back home.