June 12, 2005

On Friday I met with the “second opinion” doc from the UW Cancer Center in Madison, Dr. Rakesh Patel.   The consult went amazingly well.  I won’t get too technical when I explain this, because it’s a pretty complicated topic.  Anyway, I expected our conversation to center around the different approaches to the planning process for radiation.  But Dr. Patel agreed with the planning process I presented in my case study.  The only thing about which he had a different opinion was radiating a certain set of nodes.  After consulting with Dr. Edie Krueger in Appleton, I was suggesting that my radiation be targeted at four areas – and his opinion was slightly different on one of those areas (after having an email conversation with Dr. Krueger in Appleton, I found that she did indeed have the same opinion as Dr. Patel – when we met we just hadn’t gotten into the details about the possibilities that Dr. Patel mentioned).  I am thrilled that he is in agreement about the treatment planning process – it really was a great consultation.

The best part was when he wanted to explain one of the concepts, he asked if he could use my report – he used a picture from one of the oncology journal articles in the report to discuss IMRT.  Somehow I found that to be gratifying!

And now that my second opinion is the same as the opinion of the local doctor I want to use, Network Health Plan has approved my request to go “out of network” for my radiation treatments. I have an appointment with Dr. Krueger next week.  The radiation treatments will start a couple weeks after that; they’ll be five days a week for six weeks.  I’m glad I took the time to write a detailed report about the medical care I wanted.  Pretty much everyone is saying that they haven’t seen anyone put together such a huge analysis for a health care request before.  But you all know that I like to be different, so I’m happy to report that nothing has changed :-)  

The consult in Madison wasn’t the only fun thing about Friday.  John and I rode down to Madison together (he was on the phone with customers most of the way, but I had my iPod with me for those times – a couple times he had to shoot me a dirty look because I was singing along more loudly than I realized).  We went to my friend Jenny Lujan’s (used to be Jenny Brandt for those of you who knew us in high school) for lunch.  She lives right outside Madison and has two adorable children.  After that we went to the UW Hospital for the consult, then we went to a brew pub for dinner.  One the way home we watched the storms and the lightening.  That was so cool to watch.

I have my 25-year Neenah High School class reunion this weekend.  Another friend, Joan Hardie, is coming here from California, and I’m anxious to see her because I haven’t seen her for a very long time.  John isn’t going to the reunion, since last time he went with me to a reunion he ended up pretending he was from our class.  Which was funny, but I won’t put him through that again.  I can’t believe that it has been 25 years since high school, since I don’t feel that old.  Yikes!!!  

I have not yet decided what wig to wear to the reunion.  I will probably have to decide about the wig at the last minute along with what I will wear.  I suppose it will depend on what kind of crazy mood I’m in…

Love
Val