My Appointment with Dr. Cheson

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Dr. Cheson is pleased with my progress to date, and I'm ready to start my next cycle of chemotherapy next week.

Today was my first appointment with Dr. Cheson since starting Chemo. My appointment was at 9:30, and seeing as how I had to get blood work done first, I left at my usual 5:15 a.m. to get there, albeit with a bit of a limp. Last night, when carrying our 12-year-old bulldog down the stairs (again, don't ask) I managed to miss the last stair and come down squarely with my 208 and her 49 pounds squarely on my right heel, from which I had only recently excorcised the demon of plantar fascitis. Well, it now feels like I'll need an old priest and a young priest (given that Georgetown University Hospital is less than a kilometer away from the famous "Exorcist Steps", I figured it's a good place to look).

Anyway, weather and traffic were both kind, and I was at the hospital by 7:00. My foot didn't allow for my normal time-killing walk, so instead I went to the hospital chapel to meditate for a while. The chapel is just off the main entrance. It is simply decorated, open to all denominations but with a distinctly Catholic feel. There are nine rather plain wooden pews on either side of a center aisle. As you come in the door, there is a board and some 2" x 2" Post-it notes for leaving prayer requests--a kind of modern day version of lighting a candle. Several of the requests reminded me again that I don't have it nearly as bad as some others.

I checked with the front desk at Lombardi at 7:30 sharp and had my blood drawn at 7:45. The gentleman who drew the blood was the single best phlebotomist I have yet encountered. He was a middle-aged man who appeared to be of indeterminate South-West Asian extraction; maybe Indian, maybe Pakistani, probably something else altogether. Whatever his origins, his technique with a needle is incredible. My hand on a bible, even waiting for it as a student of the art, I did not feel the needle go in. Not even a whisper, not even a hint.

From there, I waited to be called in the back. While waiting, I ran into Jamela, from the seventh floor, who was helping out downstairs today. It was a nice surprise. At 9:30, I was escorted back to a consultation room and was soon joined by both Damiet and Katherine, who fans of the blog will remember as Dr. Cheson's Nurse-Practitioner. Katherine--charming as ever--re-measured many of my lymph nodes, calling out the names and measurements to Damiet. After the Tour de Tim, they gathered up their things and left, promising to return with Dr. Cheson.

Five minutes later, Dr. Cheson and the ladies came in. Dr. C. repeated some of the measurements with an expression on his face that caused me no small measure of relief, told me to keep up the good work, and then--poof--he was gone.

Katherine translated for me. At this stage in my treatment, after one round of Chemo, they would have been pleased with just a reduction from the March baseline of my white blood cell (WBC) count, even if my lymph nodes had grown a little. As it is, I have significant reduction in both the WBC count and in node size. It appears that I am responding very well to the treatment so far. I didn't realize until they said it how much I had needed to hear it. So this Saturday, I start back on the Allotropin, and then Monday head in for another week with my newest, bestest friends, Rituxin and Fludarabine.

After the visit with Dr. Cheson, I went up to the seventh floor to the Trials area to confirm my appointments for next week (I also stole a couple of packs of Oreos from the Trials cookie stash for the ride home) then headed for Leonardtown.

The only bad news today was that Damiet is leaving the Trials group to start her Internal Medicine residency at Georgetown U. Hospital. I wished her luck and said that I hoped that all our future meeting would be social in nature.

So--to quote Dr. David Davila, MD (a reference no one reading this will understand)--"So far, so good".