Yesterday I spent a fruitless day off calling the hospitals reccomended by the oncologist for the biopsy. Fruitless, yes, so fruitless and much as I'd anticipated. I've been here before.
The first clinic, after I'd called several times, said they didn't do that kind of test. Great. I called the big hospital in Creteil several times and got no answer or was connected and got no answer, was cut off and finally had the receptionist who said when I asked for the MRI dept (I kid thee not) "oh, MRI department, AGAIN, there are so many of you today, it's ridiculous". This is the main switchboard of a huge, really huge departmental, capital city hospital. wtf, seriously. Then the MRI department didn't answer (again). Phoned surgeon's sec hoping to get the nice receptionist and was going to ask her to make the call for me. Sadly came across the less nice, slightly snippy one, who, when I explained I was phoning just to update the surgeon on the latest decision, said I was to call him myself - here was the number.
And then called the oncologist secretary and asked her to make the appointment for me as I was having no luck. She said she'd check with the oncologist tomorrow and get back to me to see if she was authorised to do that. Well, it's tomorrow now and nobody has come back to me. Surprise.
I called my pal who came to the MRI with me about something else, but she asked me straight away if I'd got an appointment yet. She demanded the numbers and said she'd call herself. Awwww.
Also, posted my support on a member website where someone had just been diagnosed bc and was putting it out there. Good for her, the only way to get through this is to be surrounded by love and I hope she gets lots of it coming her way. I'm not sure how supportive I was as I don't feel I can really cope with someone elses pain right now, alongside my own (put your own lifejacket on before putting someone elses on otherwise you'll both drown), but I hope I helped a bit, I tried. I felt so badly for her and remembered the shock and fear I had when I was diagnosed.
This had the knock-on effect of putting my current situation out there to people who know me (although I didn't go into details of course) and I was really touched to receive some really supportive, kind, helpful messages, which made me feel very warm and loved.
My dear pal has more stamina than I do. She managed to speak to someone in the MRI department and they said 'we don't just make appointments like that over the phone, we need to see your dossier', so it looks like I'll have to lose a day's pay and go to the hospital myself in order to make the appointment. Ho bloody hum.
On the whole though, all of this came together to make me a little more optimistic today. I've made the decision to go ahead with the biopsy. I need to know. The operation, well, that's very sadly taken a back seat for now, I need to be well to do it, frustrating though it is. I'm not really convinced that it will ever happen to be honest.
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