Back on Track

So, yeah, on Wednesday I saw my third potential primary oncologist. It was an interesting conversation. A few rapid fire getting to know you questions -- where did you grow up? what do you do for a living? do you have any hobbies? etc. -- and then into an overview of the treatment plan the could offer. In short, a whole lot of genetic testing, followed by a whole lot of chemotherapy infusions of various flavors to be determined by the results of the genetic testing. 

And truth be told, under the right circumstances I would absolutely pursue treatment with this guy. He was clearly very committed to a very singular goal: keeping his patients breathing for as long as absolutely possible. So if I was the parent of small children, or was three years from completing the project that was going to win me a Nobel prize, or was building a sailboat in my garage -- or basically doing any significant thing that I needed a few years to finish, I would totally be down with this guy's approach to cancer treatment. 

But I don't really have anything significant I need to finish. Hence, for me it becomes a question of quality. Multiple years of dragging my infusion pump from my bed to my couch and back again are of little interest to me. 

So I'm going back to the SCCA. I still get an oncologist who only does colon cancers and a cancer-treating machine, but the folks at the SCCA seemed more willing to entertain the idea that as the person who has to live through whatever the treatment involves, I ought to have a say in what that treatment is. 

What it is for now is more of the same. An Avastin infusion followed by two weeks of Zeloda followed by a week off. Rinse and repeat until the tumors start growing again and then... who knows? We'll figure that out when the time comes.

Treatment won't start until next Tuesday, but at least I can stop worrying about where to find care. Well, for the cancer. I still have the challenge of finding an endocrinologist to manage my diabetes and a primary care physician to take care of whatever routine weirdness comes up outside the purview of cancer or diabetes.  

I figure I'll put that off until my insulin prescription runs out, and/or I start gushing blood or have some other crisis that requires healthcare. The search for an oncologist has pretty much consumed all of my available healthcare related brain cells.