Professional Patient

I became a card-carrying patient at Johns Hopkins this week. It's true. The card is orange and plastic. It has a long number on it. But I'm not telling you the number. Like I'd let you take MY number, pretend to be me, and get to take MY breast cancer treatments. Forget about it.

The life of a professional pregnant cancer patient is pretty glamorous after all. The hospital people are always squeezing you in for liver sonograms and genetic counseling appointments at the last minute - other people sometimes wait for weeks for this kind of stuff. Then people stare at you, especially once you lose your hair. (Not that I've lost mine yet. But I sure took some sly double-takes at my fellow patients this week).

Plus who else gets to talk to a chemo doctor for close to three hours? Who else gets to visit a fetal anesthesiologist, a maternal fetal specialist, a dermatologist, a dentist for work to help prevent chemo mouth sores, a flu shot clinic, an OB-GYN, three wig specialists, the liver sonogram woman and the genetic doctors all in one week. And that doesn't even count the lab work. I pee-ed in 3 cups this week and had my blood drawn 2 times. All those other losers in the lab waiting area had one paper requesting their test. I had two papers full of tests.

The fun and excitement doesn't end there. The sonogram lady had not just one doctor but two look at the pictures to confirm there weren't any obvious tumors that had spread to my liver. Then she moved the sonogram paddle down so we could see Flicker waving his/her arms and legs and twisting around. That's right. On this sonogram machine, there was no fuzzy black-and-white blob. There was a definite baby profile. You could see arms, legs, feet, hands and even the umbilical cord.

Now that's special. So sorry. Again, I'm not giving you that card number. Get your own.