Next Steps

Just a quick update this week. It’s been a rough day full of headaches and I am about out of energy to put up with the current iteration which feels like a hot knife under my skull--not a particularly sharp or heavy one, somewhere between a plastic knife and a butter knife.

I had thought that the move to the new oncology office would ensure that my primary care doctor, oncologist, and radiation oncologist would have all the same data and would be therefore all on the same page. But while the radiation onco had reached out to my onco to discuss ordering Avastin to help with my headaches and stop the edema, she didn’t get a copy of my latest MRI and thought I would need another one to convince the insurance company. I initially didn’t realize that she wasn’t aware there had been an MRI in March. It wasn’t in her system and she had to log in to something else in order to see it. I think this was because it was with a different provider. I don’t think this is best practice to keep switching machines and radiologists interpreting the results. I had initially thought I was being sen to Clive for a more advanced machine, but nothing I noticed during the test or in reading the results makes me think there was any substantial technical difference. So when my oncologist almost missed it entirely I know now to be a little more insistent or at least ask more questions when they schedule the next MRI.

I start the Avastin on April 15th. While tax day causes most of us headaches, I’ll be on my way to hopefully losing my biggest headache.