Wednesday at Chemo Clinic

I'm going to try to make these letters bigger. Is this working?

Bill saw the onco today, and failed his blood test, so he had to get a nice long drip, but only of magnesium. Still, it took most of the day.

He feels a little tired right now, but nothing worse than normal. So that's good.

Only worry I have right now is that his blood urea nitrogen (BUN) scores have continued to climb over the last month. I am wondering if that is connected to the new itching, as his BUN was at an all-time high today. Well over the limit for normal. One of the first signs of BUN disorder can be itching.

Well, I thought Miss Oncology would think of THAT, but no, she didn't. And why didn't she?

Because she thought it would be a better use of her time to yell at me for mentioning Bill's itching problem. I'm not kidding!

I got SCOLDED BY THE ONCOLOGIST!

I am SO MAD!

Scolded for CONTRIBUTING information that Bill ASKED ME FOR while he was listing his issues, and darned if, as soon as I said one thing, that oncologist didn't suddenly say to me in a stern voice (as stern as you can sound when you're a 4-foot-tall 23-year old oncologist), "MA'AM, YOU NEED TO CALM DOWN. REALLY!"

WHAT??!?!?!?

Even Bill was dumbfounded. I had done nothing whatever to elicit being talked to like that! I couldn't believe it!

Well, in fine form, I instantly shut my mouth, and started silently perusing the posters on the wall and never looked at her again, never talked, never acted like I knew anyone else was in the room for the rest of the time.

She never made the connection between the BUN score and the itching, and she did not take the itching seriously.

"Oh, really, fooooo?" I thought. "If that BUN score is related to that itching, and you didn't do anything about it, except tell me to shut up, I hope you can spell m-a-l-p-r-a-c-t-i-c-e."

So after being unimpressed with everything else Bill said was wrong with him, she said, at the very end, "Anything else?" and Bill looked at me and said, "I don't think so. Anything else?" and I just shrugged, like "Don't ask me; I'm just his CAREGIVER who spends 40 hours a week learning about his health. Why would *I* have anything to contribute, Miss Impudent Hussy?" No, I didn't say that, but I thought it. And a lot more besides.

After she left, Bill said he couldn't believe she had done that, and that he wished he had said something smart-aleck back to her, but I said, "No, it wouldn't enlighten her AND we have no power in this situation. If she's that weird, she could mess with us if we really made a stink out of it."

Luckily, we didn't have to behold Her Royal Oncologism any more after that. We went into the hands of the nurses there, who are really nice, respectful, kind--even to the lowly caregiver.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrr.