cancer – day 54
I’m working tonight because I spent the afternoon doing more cancer stuff. It’s kind of demoralizing to always have some medical thing superseding the importance of everything else in your life. There’s just this constant stress I can’t seem to escape.
So, this afternoon. Well, actually it started last week when I talked to my parents about the new possibly-no-chemo thing, and I asked them if they could do a little digging to find out if we can get my biological medical history. Whether or not there is a history of cancer (especially breast cancer of course) would definitely have an effect now on my decision to do chemo even if I’m something less than a 26 recurrence score on the oncontype dx test. So Dad found the adoption services thing for the county in Wisconsin that I was born in, and he called them to see if it’s possible to get my medical history. They called him back and told him that, unless I was incapacitated, they would need me to be the one seeking the information, so I left them a voicemail on Monday.
So Tuesday (Did I already write about this? Ach, there’s so much happening all the time.) a woman calls me back from the department of health and family services, and apparently I have to fill out an adoption search application in order for them to search for my adoption records and medical info. She tells me they have to send it in the mail. I explain to her the urgency of this with the cancer treatment implications and all, and she agrees to fax the 8 pages of paperwork to me. So last night I filled it all out, thinking I’d get it sent off today.
Well getting it sent off proved more hassle than I’d allowed for. My signature on the application has to be notarized, and of course I went to the bank (where the adoption search people said there are notary services), but they only notarize documents for their own bank.
So now I need to search a notary, which I can do on my GPS, but I’ve also now remembered that in order to get an updated (meaning, everything from when I was adopted until now) family medical history, I have to “Attach physician’s letter with the application.” That’s all it says. It doesn’t say what has to be in the letter, just that there has to be one. I imagine this will take some time, so instead of looking for a notary I drive to my doctor’s office, Dr. Camisa, who is my general practitioner and the gynecologist who found my breast lump. She doesn’t have the best staff in the world, but eventually I got them to understand what I needed, but of course there was no telling when Dr. Camisa would have time to do it, and her staff certainly wasn’t making it a priority. And she’s out tomorrow, so they think I can come back to pick up the letter on Friday. I explain the urgency for the adoption search and my chemo decision next week, and I tell them I’ll be back later this afternoon in case if they were able to get it taken care of.
I go back out to the Jeep to find a notary (I brought my carpet steam cleaner for Mark/Rusty to use, and some boxes of clothes and stuff this time, to have at Mark’s instead of going back and forth with clothes every time I go home, and there’s no way all that would fit in Yoda! Even Rubi was bustin’ at the gills by the time I loaded up his back end.) Turns out there’s ONE notary in all of Placerville, at a lawyer’s office, and it’s right where I just was at my bank. So I go back across town to find this notary, which was tucked away out of sight around the back corner of a building, ach, I walked all the way around before happening upon the right door. So I go in, and there’s a young guy with full-arm tattoos on both arms in a t-shirt and shorts talking with a guy who’s trying to get his girlfriend out of jail. (Doesn’t that sound like a fun way to spend a Wednesday afternoon!) It takes maybe half an hour to fill out all the forms and stuff. He especially scrutinized my driver’s license . . . “When did you get your hair cut?” Oh, gosh, just about three weeks ago, I think.” You wear it well.” I look at him a bit quizzically. “Most people going from long hair to a short cut are always fussing with it and looking uncomfortable for a while.” OK, well, like I said, it’s making small talk. Then he notices the motorcycle classification on my license, and we get into a conversation about race bikes. Oh, did I mention there’s a big dirty friendly bored yellow lab looking for attention in there? Quite the law office, eh? Small towns, gotta love ‘em.
So now I’m in the law office’s parking lot thinking about this doctor’s note thing, knowing that Camisa’s staff is NOT going to get that taken care of in any kind of timely manner. Then DUH it occurs to me to try Dr. Thayer, who’s office is three doors down from Camisa’s. Surely the adoption search people will accept a letter from my surgeon instead of my primary care physician? It’s not like they said what kind of doctor they want this letter from. So I called Dr. Thayer’s office and talked to Renee, his assistant and office manager. Renee and I are buddies now, she’s seen a lot of me with all these appointments, and we have a good relationship. Renee tells me Dr. Thayer is in surgery this afternoon but available in Folsom tomorrow, did I need to see him? So I explain the whole thing to her, and she tells me, “oh I can do that! Do you think they’ll accept a letter with his stamped signature?” At this point I’m thinking, they’d better because I’m not delaying two more days when I may have to make a chemo decision next week! So I drive back across town again to Thayer’s office (same building as Camisa).
Renee had already typed up this great letter and put Thayer’s signature on it:
“To Whom It May Concern: This letter is to inform you that CYNTHIA MILLER has been under my care. She has a recent diagnosis of breast cancer. In order to provide the best treatment for her, a family medical history is being requested. If you have any questions please contact our office.”
Wow, it even sound like how he would say it. That girl is really something. Oh, and since Thayer was out, she had her daughter in the office with her, and I got to hear all about the purple fairies in the garden and in her room. Too cute!
So I have the letter from Thayer, so I walk back over to Camisa’s office and of course her staff hasn’t even told her I need this letter thing. So I give them a copy of the letter for my file.
On the way to Sac I faxed the whole application in, and then mailed the original. Hopefully they’ll get on this quickly so we know my biological medical history before the chemo decision on Wednesday.