Oh what fun Oxford was yesterday.
Went back there at about 12:30pm to speak to Dr Protheroe (I finally learned his name!), get the results of last week's CT scan, and get more blood taken. More blood! BLOOD!
The scan results were clear - no regrowths, nothing out of the ordinary at all. I relayed a few fears and problems I've been having since my last checkup (nothing major, and the doctor informed me they were indeed nothing to worry about - apparently remaining testicles and scar lines can hurt for months if not years after testicle removal surgery! Who knew?!), and we just chatted about my health for a while.
I even mentioned this blog to him, and he's given me the email address of his secretary to send it to. Maybe they can use it to help other guys in my situation. Who knows.
He ended the session by telling me to go get more blood drawn, so I left the doctor's office and drew a ticket for the phlebotomist. From one of those ticket machines you get at old butcher counters, or government buildings. Kinda surreal.
After waiting 40 minutes, I trundled in to the phlebotomist room. She knew what she was doing, but still managed to fail twice, once on each arm. Kinda getting sick of my veins. And the best part is: apparently phlebotomists can only try twice before they have to refer you to someone else. Unfortunately, there were no other phlebotomists on call yesterday, so I got sent back to the doctor.
Who, of course, had gone home by then. So I got sent through to the day clinic. Oh, Oxford's day clinic. What a fun place you are. A huge ward full of sick people on beds, in chairs, wandering around, shuffling and limping. I was sitting next to a nice old lady that was getting her last round of chemo, right there while we were talking. Again, surreal.
I get sat down, a heat pack shoved on my arm, and told to wait. After another 40 minutes of waiting, a nice nurse (or head matron? I don't know the terminology, but all the other nurses were asking her questions) came and took the blood (3 vials!) from a different vein immediately. By then the heat pack had gone cold, but that didn't seem to matter.
We were finally free to leave at about 3:30pm. We had plans to go to the covered market on high street, since it's Megan's last trip to Oxford. As we were getting there, the place was closing, but we still managed to grab something to eat at Pie Minister and looked around some of the shops.
So that was my day yesterday. I have to go back to Oxford again around the end of March for another Xray. And more bloods. I wonder if someone can pull out a waiting ticket for me now..?
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