HOA Update

I'm pooped again, but I wanted to post an update about my appointment at HOA.  That place is crazy! In a good way.  Since it was my first time there, I had to see the patient advocate first.  She explained some things, and... gave me a free tote bag with some other random free stuff in it!  I was pretty excited about that.  I also have to wear a bracelet with my information on it whenever I'm there, and mine says "PATIENT NEEDS DIAGNOSES" on it.  Haha.  They couldn't have said it better!

After that meeting, we went upstairs to another waiting room where they had coffee and puzzles, and it was just very cool.  I couldn't help but look around and wonder what each person there was going through.  My appointment was with the doctor who happens to be the founder of the place.  Doctor appointments are so stressful when I'm meeting with a doctor for the first time.  We basically have to shove the past 2 or 3 years of my life into a 30 minute interview and try as hard as we can not to leave anything important out.  It's not fun at all, especially because we don't have any diagnose to work from, which puts a ton of pressure on us.  It's especially not fun when the conversation is focused on the types of cancer that I haven't been checked for yet.  Thankfully, the Oncologist doesn't think it's any type of cancer.  He thinks I need to go to the Infectious Disease specialists instead, and we made sure to tell him that I was denied by the ID people at Upstate last time.  I have to go back to HOA tomorrow to have some more blood work done... mainly simple things like a CBC and SED rate stuff.  Next week, I'll go back again for another appointment with that doctor, and depending on the results, we'll see if I need a CT scan to check for any hidden malignancies.  Based on my old CBC's, that doesn't seem likely... but we'll see.  I also have an appointment with the Internist tomorrow.

By the end of my appointment today, I was a mental wreck.  However, once I remembered that I was at the Oncologist, I realized that it's probably pretty normal for people to leave crying.  It's just that normally people leave crying because they have cancer... not because they don't know what they have.  I'm just very discouraged and stressed out, and by the end I was back to blaming myself for everything.  It's terrible.  I'm doing a little better now though, and it's time to get some sleep for another big day tomorrow...

P.S. This song makes me happy =)