Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Let's start with the bad news, shall we?

As I look outside my window this afternoon, typing this up, I can see quite clearly that it is snowing. And apparently, it is rather chilly out as well. May I remind you that it is also April 4th? What happened to the eighty-degree temperatures of one week ago? Sigh. Oh Spring, you fickle, fickle season.

In slightly more relevant bad news, I have pretty much been a bum for the past two days. Yesterday morning I was given an anti-nausea medication that basically knocks you out. I didn't want to take it, but nurse Anna assured me, "No, no, this medicine does nothing to you. You'll be fine." And I'm not so keen on arguing with that woman. Needless to say, I slept the whole day, with frequent interruptions by various doctors and nurses. Yesterday was also the day I had my lumbar puncture. Which leads us to my final bit of bad news: my back hurts like HELL. And really, I can think of no other way to put it. I guess the pain is a result of muscle spasms, which for some reason are brought on by the LP. The nurses offered to give me some pain meds last night, but I have a very strong aversion to pills I absolutely don't need to take. I also thought that I could just sleep off the cramps. Sadly, I did not sleep off the cramps. I did, however, get a hot pack this morning, which helped immensely. So thank God for hot packs.

And for the good news! I told my doctor a few weeks ago that I would really like to be able to return to Boston in the fall for school. She told me she would have to talk to her "people" and get back to me. So on Monday, she got back to me. I was initially thinking that I would just be transferred back to the BU Medical Center. My doctor told me, however, that BUMC isn't a member of this national group of hospitals that are part of the study that I am in. She did say that the Dana Farber Cancer Institute is a member of the group. She also told me that the woman who heads my study works here at UofC, and that one of this woman's good friends is a principal physician in the hematology/oncology ward at Dana Farber. So basically, because people have connections and my doctor is super awesome, I am pretty much all set to be transferred to Dana Farber in the fall, arriving in Boston at least a few days before classes start. Woo hoo! This makes life so much easier, because I even have a doctor lined up. Also, I mean, you really can't go wrong with the teaching affiliate for Harvard University Medical School. So in exactly five months from today, classes will be starting at Boston University, and I will be one of the students attending them. And that's about it for now. I'll probably go back to sleep relatively soon, get my energy back and all that whatnot. But good things to look forward to in the future. Happy Hump Day!

3 comments:

Justin Hook said...

It's snowing there as well? Man, that's ridiculous. It's snowing here, too. (Picture of snow in Cambridge.)
That's terrific you're coming back to Boston! (Look for an email from me w.r.t. that.)

Is w.r.t. an acronym people use?

Megan/Yuping said...

YAY!

kev-kev said...

congratulations, noogie time when you get back!...and open mic night domination