And more tests....

I saw the surgeon at Memorial exactly one week ago and there are still no answers, just more tests. This is very frustrating and also eye opening. At Cornell, the doctors and their team took care of most patient items such as scheduling tests and calling you back when test results came back. At Memorial, it all falls on the patient which is an extra added stress that I did not appreciate until now that I have to handle most of it. Memorial has a soft tissue disease center which, in situations like mine, is supposed to be the best place to receive treatment. That went into my decision when choosing Memorial. Also, I was lucky because one of the world’s best surgeons took my case. As anyone that has ever been with surgeons knows, it takes a special person (lots of ego.) You have to look past their manners and just ask yourself do you want the nice guy or do you want the best guy. Like I always say, nice can be overrated. I guess I am just frustrated that after 8 weeks I still don’t have a definite diagnosis. All the doctors agree that I will need surgery but they don’t know exactly what type of surgery. So the wait continues…I guess I have to learn that waiting and uncertainty are part of the game. In the meantime, I have suspended all further procedures until the doctors get more data. I had a pretty tough recovery from my ureteroscopy and I did not want to subject myself to another unless the second doctor thought it was necessary. When Dr. B called today he felt that we could get a biopsy via a guided CT scan. It is less invasive than a ureteroscopy and it can test for the same thing. I am certainly not looking forward to drinking more contrast, but at the same time this is a better option than the ureteroscopy. This will be my fifth CT scan in 8 weeks! Modern medicine is amazing.