I had plans to get started back on painting this morning, and even do some machine embroidery. Just some simple stuff that wouldn’t be taxing on my surgery wounds, or to at least try it to see if I could do it without too much discomfort. But instead, I looked at the number of pain pills left in my medicine bottle. I have been trying to cut back on the Percocet and ease into Ibueprofen, but found that with my surgery that wasn’t a minor surgery to say the least, that it wasn’t cutting it yet. I realized that if I still needed the stronger medication even with cutting down on it, I was going to run out by the weekend, and I discovered that I do not rest at all with this kind of pain. I called the doctor’s office to ask them how I could obtain an order without having to drive all the way to Santa Maria to pick up the prescription, but there wasn’t any other option. I even called my Medical Oncologist here in San Luis Obispo to see if they would indulge me, but it was against the protocol. Needless to say, I was starting to feel like I looked like drug dependent person trying to snag more narcotics. I know now that no one but myself is actually even thinking that, but I am an expert at beating up on myself.

I also had plans to see a friend this afternoon that I hadn’t seen in a long time, and had to cancel our get-together, because I needed to go in the afternoon to go pick up the prescription by hand in Santa Maria. I called my friend Janis to take the trip with me down there, and she was sweet enough to be flexible and go down with me. I told her we could pick up lunch on the way down, and we ended up going to New Frontier’s which is one of my favorite lunch places to go.

When we got to the doctor’s office in Santa Maria, the doctor was gone then which I knew she would be after talking with the nurse navigator this morning. The doctor had an emergency at home with a sick daughter, but she said she would write the prescription before she left. What happened when I got there, was the front office girl didn’t know anything about it, the Dr. was gone to see her ill child, and the nurse navigator was gone too. The front office gal and the back office nurse looked every where for a prescription for me and couldn’t even find my chart. They concluded that in the doctor’s haste to get to her ill daughter, she probably scooped up my chart and the prescription pad along with all her other belongings and out everything went.

They had me wait while they tried to text the doctor and the nurse about where the prescription was. No one was calling back. I was starting to hurt and I was also very fatigued, but I wasn’t upset at anyone. Stuff happens, but I felt bad because my going there made them feel bad because they knew I was a fresh post-surgery patient and really needed the prescription before the weekend coming. I then told them that I will just tough it out and maybe my pain will subside by then. I understand emergencies and it couldn’t be helped. I think that made them feel worse and they told me to wait a bit longer until one of the two called them back. When the nurse navigator came in and discovered that the doctor accidentally took off with my prescription, she sat next to me and apologized to me and she was almost in tears. I wasn’t upset, but I know I probably looked like it because I was starting to really hurt at that time and wanted to lay down because it ended up being a long day for me. The doctor finally called back and agreed to meet me at Trader Joe’s in Arroyo Grande to give me my prescription. She apologized, and I tried to downplay it because I knew she was stressed about her daughter, and I told her I was sorry her daughter was so ill. I think we were all having a bad day. I did feel bad for her as well. What is worse than your child being very ill.

Now with Rx in hand, Janis and I started back home and I got back in time to eat some leftovers quickly, and make two phone calls and then go to our support groups. I was really feeling like I needed to go to bed, I was so tired and in pain. But our support groups meet only every other week now, so we were needing to touch bases with these people we now have in our lives. I am really coming to love several of the people in the group so much. They feel like family in an odd sort of way. We can share things in this place and everyone understands and is experiencing similar things as well even though each story is different. We all have our very diversified stories of our diagnosis, treatments, and how we handle multiple situations. We help each other in facing some of the issues. This is surely a unique journey that I am on as well as my comrades in battle.