What a Difference a Day Makes

Yesterday things came together. I wish I didn't have to work so hard to make other people work. But, that's no different than the way things have been through my entire life.

I do not like being responsible for other people. I do not like making sure that people are doing their jobs. I do not like being the boss.

I was the boss once at a printing and design firm in Harrisburg. I'm pretty sure one of the main reasons I was made the boss was because I truly believed in working hard and doing good work.

We had a pressman there who was truly, always grumpy and unhappy. It's just the way he was. He complained. He argued. He was impossible to get along with. He was a big guy, both height and weight, and if he got a bad plate for his press he ripped the metal plate right off the cylinder while yelling and screaming.

One day a friend of mine who worked there also just got tired of the negativity. During one of his regular temper tantrums, my friend approached him and said "Look. I drug myself in here, drove through traffic, through the snow, what do you say we just try to make the best of it and shut up?"

The big pressman was shocked and silent. That's why my friend was my friend.

But being the boss? Well you just couldn't pay me enough. One former co-worker once told me that I'm like "a gun for hire." I was OK with that.

I had to work for more than three months to settle a dispute over $312 between my hospital's billing department and my health insurer. It felt like I was in the boss role and they were employees who quite frankly couldn't care less. But it's finally miraculously been settled. I didn't have any choice but to try to mediate and bring the parties to some resolution. If they couldn't agree (or care to even try) they were happy to just make it my problem.

Yesterday I also had to take charge of my medical treatments again. But this went much easier. Unfortunately they know me quite well at the cancer center.

Barb and I are faced with a decision whether to treat existing small tumors in the brain with radiation right away, or to wait for a set period of time and then checking the state of the brain then.

But we did not have the facts we needed to make the decision.

I called the radiology-oncology department expecting to ask to sit down with one of the doctors and spot by spot review my last two brain MRI's to try to gauge exactly what was going on. But before I could suggest that they suggested it first! So we have an appointment with a very knowledgeable doctor to do just that.

I've been told that the three existing tumors are all stable and none have grown. But only two tumors are noted on the radiologist's report. What happened to the third? Did it resolve without radiation?

I was also told that a few tiny spots have appeared. What is tiny? None of them were measured. Are they too small to measure? Too small to treat? How many is a few?

The radiologist's report from the MRI does mention one small "foci" in the pons section of the brain. The pons is the top of the brain stem in the center of the brain and is an area that is tough to treat and requires treatment. It shouldn't be waited on like other areas of the brain can be waited on.

I asked everyone I saw if this area in the pons was just residue from a previous treatment or was it actually a new growth area. No one knew.

If it is a new growth we will have to move towards the Gamma Knife radiation treatment in the weeks to come.

I'll make sure I get the answers tomorrow.

Working through health issues can be a giant challenge, and take a lot out of a person. But I really never expected that I would have to work so hard to ensure that the care I'm getting is the best. And I really never expected that I'd have to fight so much with my health insurer to live up to our contract.

But I guess it's all a part of human nature. In my own health care, whether I like it or not, I am the boss.