Luiz health update

More or less every two months Luiz treks over to the National Cancer Institute in Rio for his periodic checkup.  Actually he does it twice, one day to have blood drawn (he has to get there early, they stop drawing blood at 8:00 a.m.) and then again a couple days later for the consultation.

His appointment is always 2:00 p.m., which is really more like they have a morning batch of patients and an afternoon batch of patients.  The afternoon batch begins 2:00 p.m. So inevitably he sits and waits in the ever-so-depressing waiting room. That said, yesterday Luiz waited 4 ½ hours before he was called in. (I was not there because Luiz would not let me come along – I got into a near shouting match with the arrogant, smarter-than-thau, “shut up and just do what I say” young medical team leader last time over a simple question.)

Luiz’s current doctor indicated that (for some reason) Luiz’s spot is almost at the end of the day, so he will always be called near the end.  Oh really – was someone going to tell us this?  His appointment slip always says 2:00 p.m. – but if their secret scheduling thing in the back has Luiz never seen before 4:30, why not tell him that? Needless to say Luiz was exhausted by the time he got home.

On the bright side – all of Luiz’s Complete Blood Count numbers were wonderful.  Things remain stable and some ticked in the better direction. Our “Watch and Wait / Worry” period continues.  It has been nearly three years since Luiz’ Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia diagnosis. He continues to maintain a healthy state of affairs.

This time around I’m going to add a health update for myself.

I’m about 15 days post gastric bypass surgery. I feel great, my doctor assures me all is going well, and I’m out walking twice a day. By Monday I’ll be up to 70 ml of puréed food every 45 minutes. Oh the possibilities! I’ve lost nearly 30 pounds.

Thanks all for your well wishes.