Thursday, 30 June 2016

Recap of clinic day

Alright, so I'm feeling a bit recovered from Toronto although my throat is still killing me.

As already stated, last weekend we flew into the city and went to my cousins for a weekend of lounging by the pool. It was marvelous except that our connecting flight from Ottawa to Toronto was stupidly late. It was one of those delays that didn't happen until the plane had already taxied away from the gate so we sat on the runway for an hour before the pilot gave up and went back to the airport where we all disembarked for an hour before taking off.

It turns out the computers were down in Toronto so they couldn't make a flight plan which meant no one was leaving the ground. It was very frustrating for all. Especially for all of us waiting who had to deal with the woman Skyping from her laptop to the party at her house who kept saying, "look at the awesome party at my house!! That is where I'm suppose to be!! Not here stuck at the airport!!" We get it lady, you're cool, and the only one of us on the flight who had somewhere else they'd rather be.

After relaxing in Oakville for a few days, we went into the city to the B&B on Sunday for my appointments bright and early Monday morning.

I left Isaiah at the B&B (because he didn't want to get out of bed at 630) and set off to the hospital bright and early for bloodwork and my lung function test. I thought the blood clinic opened at 630 but turns out it opens at 7am so I was there 10 minutes before it opened. And I was still number 20. People in Toronto are intense! At least they have more than one blood tech working (unlike Springhill) so after waiting for 45 minutes and two pokes later, I was out of there.

My lung function tests were scheduled for 8am so I was there in plenty of time (usually I run so late on clinic days but on Monday, I was early for everything). My fev1 was about the same as in Amherst last week which is good. And all the other tests were about the same as last year's assessment in August 2015. It seems I have bounced back nicely from the cancer.
Waiting for the bag to fill for one of the tests.
I was able to run back to the B&B after my pfts to get a bite to eat and lay down before my 6-min walk test. Another test that had about the same results as last year (around 650m). I had been hoping it would be a bit higher since I feel like I've been doing more intentional active exercise for the past month but being the same isn't bad. Plus I had been swimming all weekend and we had spent the night before walking around the city so I probably wasn't in peak condition (I'm going to keep telling myself that anyway).

Waiting for my walk test. Prepping my thumping music.
 After the walk test, I had my chest x-ray and then a few hour break before my CT scan. We grabbed some lunch and headed to the patient lounge to relax/nap. And I met one of my twitter/facebook friends who had her transplant almost two months ago! (The infection control people would've had a fit). It was great to finally meet in person.
View from the lounge.
After my CT scan (which again, was surprisingly super speedy) was clinic which meant sitting around for two hours for a 10 minute appointment. I only recognized one person from the transplant group that was in the hospital and recovering the same time as me. She was there for her 18 month assessment.

Debating having a nap during the two hour wait for the doctor.
Once I finally saw the doctor, he didn't have much to say. He reviewed everything that had happened since the last appointment and felt like I was on the right track. He was a bit more concerned than the hematologist about the PET scan report of activity on my hip area. But as he couldn't see the actual scan and could only read the report, he was fine with the plan for a follow up scan and didn't feel the need to investigate further. He was also concerned about the spot on my lung and wanted to biopsy it during my bronch the next day. I thought that was a great plan and reminded him that I needed lots of drugs for the bronch. He said that shouldn't be a problem and we fled the hospital for that day.

Did he give me enough drugs? How did the bronch go? Find out tomorrow!

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