What's Going On

I'm not on the board of directors or anything. But I'm at the local cancer center so often that I tend to get a pretty good feel for what is going on.

I've been visiting there so regularly across the past four-years I have more experiences in the place than some nurses. I've seen some come and I've seen some go.

Tuesday, as soon as I walked through the door to the treatment room the receptionist said to me, "I'll take care of you Jim."

It's been horribly cold up here. My Interferon treatment forced me out into it yesterday, with the help of Barb and her Mom.

The cancer center has been going through some major renovations. Barb, her Mom, and I have been a bit skeptical of these renovations as they began to be revealed through December. The number one thing we were worried about was the amount of room, or the lack of room, they've left patients in the new waiting rooms.

The waiting areas had always gotten quite full. We've seen the old waiting areas overflow with patients and they were twice the size of this new one.

I questioned one of the nurses I've gotten to know fairly well about the changes. She explained to me that the hospital was taking over the cancer center from a group of doctors that had run it previously. That I did not know. But I could see the results of the switch in my last two visits for treatment.

One thing that was different was I was given an arm band right away. I wasn't a person anymore. I was a bar code. I wasn't real fond of the thought of that.

Also, now, all the nurses had to dress in the exact same scrubs - uniforms. I know they weren't exactly thrilled with this change. A nurse told me that she felt the new system was less personal, more mechanical. That didn't sound good either.

I only needed an injection yesterday. It literally takes about 30-seconds. In the old set-up people who needed injections would come right in, sit right at the end of the nurses' command center, get there treatment and quickly be on there way.

Yesterday, in the new treatment area, they led me to a corner, closed me in behind curtains, and took my blood pressure, temperature, and a blood sample. Then the wait began.

I try very hard to never make people wait. I had a boss once that said, "If you make people wait, it's like saying your time is more important than theirs. Like you are more important than they are." This boss was constantly, habitually late. So he must have thought that this pertained to everyone but him. But I believed in this philosophy completely.

In the early stages of my cancer I once had to wait 3-hours, and another time had to wait and amazing 4-hours for the doctor to show up. I was hoping there was at least a good reason, like emergency surgery, so I asked. Nope, he told me it was the result of bad scheduling.

Grrrr.

I don't put up with that anymore. It's not right to make cancer patients, many in worse conditions that I, to wait, curled up in a ball, in pain, for a 30-second injection.

Well, 15-minutes went by. I felt like I was being punished stuck in a corner, hidden by curtains and an IV-machine. Then 30-minutes went by. I stood up to stretch my legs although my real motivation was to get attention. It worked. The nurse told me it would just be a couple more minutes.

Another 30-minutes went by and I was officially getting grouchy. I was considering getting up and leaving.

Just then the medicine came out and the nurse gave me my injection and I was on my way.

I could tell by their faces that Barb and her Mom didn't exactly enjoy this wait either. I couldn't believe how full the waiting room was. There were two people sitting on the floor (ON THE FLOOR?!?!?!?). You mean to tell me that in the whole hospital there isn't two extra chairs for these two? As I helped Barb and her Mom collect their coats I coaxed the two patients on the floor into their chairs.

There was yet another patient leaning against a wall, with no chairs in sight.

This was unacceptable.

I can't stop thinking about it. If there is anyway I can possibly change things for the better for people I care about (fellow cancer patients) I want to reach out and try.