Because they know me

Her name is Mary. She is a new nurse. The new doctor's name is Nancy. They are now entering my bubble of a life of cancer treatment. And they don't know me. It is like going on a first date, bringing a new puppy into the house, having your boss replaced, watching your daughter bring home a new boyfriend, having to find someone new to cut your hair just so.
Starting back from the beginning and hashing through my life with these new people. It is mentally disruptive. It is like an unwanted intrusion, a necessary evil, an unavoidable detour.

For I will be entering, for the first time since early 2002, the realm of radiation oncology.
We are looking for pain abatement and bone preservation. My femur was calling out to us with a pain so fierce that it had rendered me close to defeated and the disease that had sat so long and complacent and secondary in my hips and that leg bone was suddenly being the squeaky wheel.
A very painful, squeaky wheel. So we gotta go oil it.

I have been temporarily pulled off a chemo regime that I hated and did not work. Although I would have loved to have seen lower markers, I am relieved to not having another round right now, but I am anxious to get this new "thing", this radiation approach over and done with and back to where I am known.

It was so apparent that medical records could not possibly scratch the surface in letting this new nurse and doctor know about my last 7 1/2 years. They had no idea what was not written in the charts and scans and information that was in their ridiculously thin file with my name on it. There was not enough time in that appointment, not even in the entire day, to make sure they knew who I was and what I was about.

They do not know
What my faith is like
What a great family I have
How I survived a stem-cell transplant
How many rounds of chemo I have been through
How I deal with chronic pain and acute side-effects
How many drugs I have tried and tolerated
How much I value each day
How much I love my medical team in Cary
How bad a stick I am
How bossy I can be
How I love to volunteer around those in my position
That I show dogs
That I am not only interested in increasing the number of my days but also in the quality of those days
That I am a soldier, a warrior, a flat-out life-liver.
That stepping away from my life-line, my safety net, my healers and friends at CCNC...even for
a few weeks is rough for me. I already miss them. I took up 27 minutes of Janet's time on the phone yesterday....not wanting to hang up...wanting to stay connected and close and cared for.

During the long and exhausting initial appointment at the Radiation Oncologist's yesterday,
both the nurse and the doctor asked me the same question at some point in the fact-finding.
If I had lived here (Greensboro) for over three years, why was I still being treated in Cary.
Why had I not been seeing someone locally. I wanted to answer them with everything I have just written about in today's entry. The answer to that question, which is asked of me often, is multi-faceted and partly summed up well in the words written here today. But, both times, when asked by nurse Mary and doctor Nancy, I gave the same, simple reply: Because they know me. And that was the only reply that was necessary.

"Oh Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.......you are familiar with all my ways." Psalms 139:1-3