Just Another Day

Today I'm feeling: Good, still.
I ran 2.5 miles again today, with "hills" (inclines) on the treadmill, so it was a little harder than Saturday's. And again, I could have done more, but I'm going for maintaining my health at this point, so I'll under-do instead of over-do. With the scans on Wednesday, I'm not supposed to exercise beforehand, so I'll try to run again on Thursday. It will probably be a short one, since Isabel will need to leave for class early.

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Not a whole lot of news to share. Still waiting for the scans on Wednesday -- that's the next big thing. But apparently, some people get upset if I don't write every day, so I'll come up with something to say now. (I'm an English professor, after all. We can usually come up with some way to fill an hour or so.)

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Isabel's college roommare, Robin, is a doctor, and she offered some advice: don't stay with an oncologist who won't answer all of your questions, and make sure you seek a second opinion.

We're pretty pleased with my oncologist, Dr. R. He's young -- I'd say late 30's, married with twins. The best part about him is that he did his internship and residency at BU Medical Center. (I looked that up on his practice's website. When I saw him for the biopsy, he asked if we had any questions about anything, and I said I needed to ask him about his credentials. He straightened himself up a bit, and then confirmed that he did time at BU Med. We punched fists and said "Go Terriers!".....Well, I said "Go Terriers," but he didn't cringe. And he did punch it.)

I like that he opened up by asking if we had any questions (we'd seen him 24 hours earlier). We had a few, and he answered them. In fact, when we first saw him, he answered all of our questions pretty thoroughly, even stopping himself a few times to give us some background so we'd understand his response. Very thorough, very clear, lots of making sure we understood. We like that.

He also did a fellowship in oncology at Yale for 4 years, working with a renown Lymphoma specialist. He told us that he still consults with this specialist (and we've since heard from someone else who had three family members cured when they worked with this specialist.) He said if we wanted to get in to see the specialist, he could probably get us into him pretty quickly(his wife works for the specialist, too). So he's OK about second opinions, too.

At this point, it seems like we'll probably stay with young Dr. R. My fear is that a specialist might be too busy, too science-y, not personable enough. Dr. R seems ideal as our frontline guy, given how good he is at communicating, and if he has this direct line to the specialist, we'll benefit from that indirectly.

Dr. R. also seemed genuinely sorry that he caused me unavoidable discomfort during the bone marrow biopsy. I like that, too. He's still young enough that he hasn't learned to totally steel himself against his patients' pain.

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The last issue to discuss today is the final member of the family to address: the dog.

Isabel and I have been so busy with doctors and kids for the last few weeks that we've ignored Strudel a little bit, so she was starting to show it, getting into stuff that she shouldn't just to get our attention. Her not getting as much exercise as usual hasn't helped. We usually give her two 20-30 minute walks a day to work off some Schnauzer energy. Along with the cold weather, she wasn't getting that. But now, one walk, plus some time on the treadmill, and she's better.

She's a good dog. Very sweet.
How sweet is she?
Well, I'll tell you. Last week, we had ice cream with the kids, and one of them spilled a bunch of rainbow sprinkles on the floor, which Strudel ate. When Isabel took her for a walk the next day, the sprinkles had passed through her, and she left evidence that she had cleaned them up for us.

So, we used to tell people that we named her Strudel because she's so sweet. Now we can tell them, in full truth, that our dog is so sweet that she poops sprinkles.