I Don’t Need No Doctor

When driving to my follow-up appointment with my oncologist a week after my clean CT scan, I did not happen to notice what I had playing on Spotify. I currently have 662 “liked” songs in my primary playlist, (as well as over two dozen more specific, smaller playlists). I was busy trying to find a parking place and wondering whether I was early or late.

As I only later noticed, Spotify happened to be playing a cover by a local Tucson band I like, an old R&B song that had originally been released during the month and year of my birth, and then made popular by Ray Charles a couple of months later. This little piece of trivia will become relevant three hours later, when the same song, queued up and waiting patiently for my return to the car, burst into the quiet of the cancer parking lot when my phone got back within bluetooth distance.

But first, I had three hours at the cancer center. The cancer center’s scheduling system is messed up. A portion of the multitude of alerts, texts, emails, and automated appointment reminders that bombard us patients give the actual time of the appointment, while another portion of the message reminders add anywhere between 10 minutes to 60 minutes of lead time in order to get you there early for prep that you may or may not need.

For example, my CT scan instructions include 60 minutes of prep time that doesn’t apply to me, and yet, they invariably have me come in 60 minutes early anyway. Their system is not nuanced enough to sort out whether you need contrast solution or not, and if so, whether it is going to be taken orally or by IV. I take mine in an IV, which is much faster than drinking it. Therefore, all the many, many automated appointment reminders sending me to the center a full hour early are completely wrong.

Adding to the complication, sometimes they need to do bloodwork first, and sometimes they don’t. It becomes quite a guessing game, and I guessed wrong. After getting my bloodwork done I had two hours to sit around at the cancer center before seeing my doctor. Cancer centers are not my ideal spot for spending a couple of hours. Everyone is suffering and scared. Cancer centers are very, very sad places.

Adding to my impatience was that I already had the (very happy) news that my scan was fine. I could see the report online. So why did I even need to be there to have the doctor tell me that? Well, for starters, I had bloodwork to do. And I needed to check in with the doctor to see if he wanted me to change any of my meds and supplements. And I needed to know when he wanted me to schedule my next set of bloodwork and my next scan.

The standard surveillance for recurrence for most types of cancers is 5 years, and I hit 5 years on March 1 (Yay!!!). But you probably remember how I have always said that in my case, I have to monitor for cancer recurrence for seven years, instead of the typical five years. That is because my kind of cancer is fairly slow to develop and it can take longer to reoccur.

For colon cancer there is a 6% recurrence rate between 5 and 10 years out. That is for stages I-III; I’m not sure the number specifically for stage 3. The likelihood of recurrence is much higher in stage 3 than in stage 1 in general, but on the other hand, it’s likely to happen sooner. So who knows. The point being, I’ve been thinking 2 more years of surveillance.

When I asked my doctor when my next scan was, he said, “You’re done.” I gaped at him, and he said, “Congratulations, you made it 5 years cancer free, and we don’t need to scan anymore.” I protested, being sure it was 7 years. Then I realized that it had to have been some other doctor had told me that, either in Boston where I got my surgery done, or Albuquerque where I did my chemo. This doctor reassured me that the protocol is still five years, not seven, even though, yes, my tumor was moderately differentiated…bla-bla-bla…and yes, the cancer had spread to a node…bla-bla-bla…my ears were buzzing.

I stood up and said, “I’ll take it!” and I burst into tears – the happy, relieved, I’m-not-dying kind of tears that happen all too infrequently at cancer centers. I hugged the doctor (and I am not a hugger) and I thanked him profusely for the work he did “saving lives” and left in a daze, still weeping.

As I exited, concerned staff and fellow patients looked up and made sympathetic noises, this poor women, sobbing as she leaves her doctor’s appointment – she must have gotten horrible news. So I announced my astoundingly good news, “The doctor says I’m ok now! I’m done and I don’t have to come back for scans anymore! He says I’m done!” There were congratulations and prayers and “bless you’s” as everyone there experienced this moment of joy that we all dream of, this moment that proves we don’t all die, that some of us survive and walk out that damn door in a flood of grateful tears.

I cried all the way to my car. As I got in my car, the song started back up again, right where it left off, still playing “I Don’t Need No Doctor”. And I don’t need my oncologist anymore!

I played the song on repeat and cried all the way home. I was such a blubbery mess that I called Laura from the car to tell her that everything was ok. She’s at my house visiting this week, and I figured if I walked in from my oncologist appointment with tears streaming down my face she’d have a heart attack. Which would have been entirely unnecessary.

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