We arrived at Washington Hospital Center in time to be at the check-in desk at the Cancer Center at 1 p.m., the time of our appointment. Our past experience had led us to believe that they always tell you your appointment is about 1/2 hour before they expect you to see the doctor. Don't we wish that was really their system!
It seems as though life is at a crawl here. However, I expect our tolerance for waiting will increase tomorrow, when Allison and her family arrive! It will be good to have the distractions, and something to engage us while we wait for what comes next.
All is relatively normal at the Becker house today. Robert is somewhat uncomfortable under the bandages, but not too grumbly. I was able to get to the gym today, so I am less grumbly than I would have been otherwise! We plan to go out for a short while this evening, so if you try to call but don't get us, please don't assume anything is amiss here. Leave a message on our machine and I'll respond as soon as I can.
We arrived home from Washington Hospital Center at about 2 p.m. - hungry, tired, grumpy. A bowl of soup, and now the patient gets to rest while I go out to do the things that need to be done.
The business of waiting is not one either Robert or I come by naturally - we both "just want to know already" and move on toward doing something about it. From the beginning, this melanoma thing has not cooperated with our need to move things along.
I started to write all the sordid details about Robert's diagnosis with melanoma because otherwise it feels like starting in the middle. I decided not to write it, though, because his own summary tells the story much better than I could. The following comes from an email that he sent on May 29 to our families and a few friends.
I was inspired by my BNA colleague John Schappi’s blog, “Aging and Parkinson’s and Me,” to start this blog. Like John’s blog, mine will be a personal website where I will share what’s going on in my head – whether about the health topics that are raging in there right now; or website design and implementation using Drupal, an open-source content management system that is being employed to produce this website; or journalism, retirement, grandparenthood, or any other subject that pops in there from time to time.
