Each year, Lancaster Magazine asks people of the county what they love and hate the most about Lancaster. Last year, readers said they loved me as the Lancaster County Reporter - a huge honor. (When I got to the checkout line at Giant Supermarket and purchased 37 copies of the magazine that listed me as #1, the woman said to me, "You must be in this magazine, huh? Lancaster Magazine isn't interesting enough to buy this many copies.") Each year they also list what people hate the most about Lancaster. Nearly every year "Traffic" tops the list.
These people have never been on the Schuylkill Expressway or anywhere on Long Island. Let me tell you about traffic. Chris and I had a 3pm appointment with a specialist in Philadelphia. We left 2 1/2 hours for a ride that should take 1 1/2 hours. Thanks to bumper to bumper traffic we were 30 minutes late. Ask a doctor how he feels when you beg for an appointment and then show up 30 minutes late. Chris will tell you ... it's not good.
I called ahead and let the scheduler know we would be late. Despite our tardiness and a nurse telling us they had already "no-showed" us, Dr. Thomas Randall met with Chris and me. First we talked with the resident - an "almost" doctor. I gave her a complete rundown of my health and our situation. If you had recorded it and played it back, it would have sounded like I was an "almost" doctor too. I'm all "the tumor is located between the endometrium and the myometrium" and "a wedge resection under ultrasound guidance done arthroscopicly would probably be optimum." Even I was impressed. But after I spilled my guts to Miss "Almost" Doctor, we had to do it again to "The Real Doctor."
Here's how God works in strange ways: because we were so late to the appointment we were now the last appointment of the day. During our in depth discussion about what we should do with the little fucker of a tumor, Dr. Randall remarked, "I'm glad you're the last patient so we have plenty of time to talk about this and mull over the options." I felt encouraged when he also said, "This is a very rare case. It's keeping the day interesting all the way until the end." He seems genuinely interested in my case and taking good care of us.
Bottom line: he says he can do the surgery. I asked if his wife had this and he had to do the surgery on her, how confident did he feel? He said totally confident. That's pretty good if you ask me. Now, of course there are risks in cutting out just a part of the uterus. We went over those and I quietly freak out on the inside. He also mentioned I would lose the fallopian tube on the left side, making that ovary useless. This disappointed me because I was hoping I could keep all the "inner workings." But I guess that's why God gives you two - you only need one. Lots of questions to answer there, but hopefully those will get answered in the next few days.
We told Dr. Randall were heading to Boston for another opinion. He wished us well and told us to be in touch. Chris and I thanked him and got into the elevator. As soon as the silver doors closed, I started bawling. Poor Chris looked at me with sadness in his eyes. He could tell I was sad and nervous and overwhelmed. He hugged me until we hit the ground floor. I'm all good when I'm talking a mile a minute or focusing on "left, right, left, right," but in that moment it all hit me like a ton of bricks.
We were home in Lancaster just a few hours later and Chris held me tight when we went to sleep that night. It will all be okay, he says.
Now we just wait to fly to Boston Friday to do it all over again.
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