VS, my Nurse Practitioner, called on December 23rd to tell me that the xray report indicated that there was some “cloudy” areas of concern in my lungs. We made arrangements for a CAT scan for the following week on December 30th. VS told me not to expect a call untill the following week as everyone was going to be away for the holiday.
VS tried to reach me during the early evening of January 6th, but I was in a meeting. The message was “I’ll call you tomorrow.” This was entirely different that any previous contact but when I let M know I didn’t make much about it.
On the Wednesday the 7th, VS called and said that there were lesions in both lungs and we made an appointment to meet with a thoracic surgeon the following day. M took the day off and we went off to Boston to meet with Dr. M. Dr. M is a very slight woman with a no BS, take no prisoner attitude, but underneath you find a wonderful, compassionate person with great interpersonal skills. For some reason I felt very comfortable from our first meeting onward.
We had an opportunity to review the CAT scan and discussed a treatment options. We made an appointment for a brain MRI, a PET scan and a needle biopsy of the lung mets scheduled for 13th and 14th of January.
The biopsy was going to require a general and the hospital would not release me without someone to drive me home. I arranged for both scans on the 13th with an overnight stay in a hotel and a shuttle to the hospital on the 14th. My friend Chris volunteered to drive me up and my brother Charlie arranged to pick me up on the 14th.