Oncologists Do Care About Swimmers Sometimes

As I have mentioned earlier, the thing that has been bothering me lately is my questionable swimmers.  At one point I was told they were normal at another point I was told they were abnormal.  Giving someone hope then recalling that hope is worse than not giving the hope in the first place.  At least that is how I feel about it.

Last week I had a heart to heart with my oncologist and told him how much it was bothering me and that I didn't feel like waiting around until May to check the swimmers again as my urologist/surgeon had suggested.  My oncologist was in a hurry and didn't really seem to be very interested in the conversation, but he said he agreed with me, made some suggestions and sent me on my way.  I assumed that was the end of it.

Then this week my oncologist called while I was gone.  The first reason I like my oncologist is that he didn't wait until I was home and leave some cryptic message, he talked to my wife and gave her information he knew I wanted to know.  I am sure he broke fifteen or twenty "rules" about divulging medical information, but as the patient, I appreciate it.  My wife has been to just about every oncologist appointment with me, and oncologists' calls are usually pretty important.  One doesn't generally want to wait until the "next business day" to start playing phone tag.

The information he gave was my lab results saying that my "tumor markers" came back good.  I have no idea what the heck "tumor markers" are, but if he is happy about them I am too.  Whoopee tumor markers!  What really impressed me though is that the subject I thought he was blowing off, he actually cared about and thought about after the appointment.  He said he consulted some colleagues and they agreed that May seemed like a long time to wait to see if my swimmers could go in the deep end when they should be back to the pre-chemo ways much sooner than that.

What is really cool, is that my oncologist came up with a way to not offend my urologist, by simply not telling him I was doing any of this.  He suggested we go to a "fertility specialist" that will have me tested right away. I mention this to my cancer support group, where there has been another individual in a similar position.  Somehow during the conversation I mention that wives are not allowed in the room during the "testing" to which they replied that they got to "test" as a couple.  I feel cheated!  I mean the first few times were fine being alone.  After all I had a lot of reading material to look through, but now that I have seen all of those sticky pages, I wouldn't mind going through the test without having to touch something that cracked when you turned the pages.

All of this has put me in a much better mood than I have been during the scanxiety.  I have a plan again, and hopefully will gain some good news or at least have a good game plan mapped out.  If nothing else, I get to watch some "documentaries" again.