My Life in the Waiting Rooms

(From Preface) When I got serious about writing this book, I thought about putting down in journal-form my experiences with doctors and the manner in which they handled my health issues which, at that time, involved only cancer…

As my health issues changed and became worse . . . I thought this book would be very helpful to senior citizens like myself and to those families who have elderly members trying to enjoy their later years.

So, that’s what this book is about: it takes me from an initial series of appointments with doctors (treating) cancer through another series of appointments with doctors (treating) Bell’s Palsy. You probably know very little about Bell’s Palsy. I call it a “mystery disease,” because that’s what I found it to be. It prompted several surgeries, completely changed the way I look and, to a degree, how I feel. One final suggestion: enjoy those hours you will spend in the waiting rooms as you . . . well, wait and wait a little longer.

(From Chapter Three) . . . (My cancer) radiation treatments take up most of December and all of January. It is five days a week. I can tell I am losing strength and stability. I am not the same guy who began these treatments in December, and . . . as these treatments wind down . . . I am nearing a total of 36 times in the radiation machine, and that’s the limit of what I can take.

(Results of the PET scan are in. May 13, 2013). I meet with Doctor Gupta to hear the verdict. It is good news. No, it is great news! I am free of cancer. Doctor Gupta . . . is as happy as Mary and me. It was an appropriate time for a leaping, chest-bumping high-five! (Okay, so you don’t “chest-bump” with your wife. Or your doctor.)

(From Chapter Five) Dr. Daniel Blumenfeld winds up the eye exam (for new glasses). He moves a magnifying instrument close to my left eye. Then, he says, very casually and briefly, “I want you to be checked for Bell’s Palsy.”

I google Bell’ Palsy on my computer and I find out that the disease is caused when a nerve located behind each ear is damaged. The nerve has three “arms:” one leads to your forehead, another to your upper face opposite your ear, and another to your cheek, and each arm has several branches. I am on the WebMD website and I read on: “The arms control the facial muscles , and when the nerve quits working, the muscles quit working and the skin on that side of your face begins to sag all the way from your forehead down to your chin.

That is not what exactly what the WebMD definition reads, but that is what it really says in layman’s terms. I am told there is no proven treatment for Bell’s Palsy. Nobody seems to know much about it. It is a mystery disease. There are comments about it vanishing after a couple of months. At least, in most cases.

(From Chapter Six) I have my regular quarterly appointment with Dr. Panagoitis Valilis’ assistant, Jennifer Armendariz. She checks me over, and we talk about my Bell’s Palsy. She asks where I am receiving treatment for it, and I answer I’m not. She looks startled. She has some experience with palsy patients, and says they had recovered after treatment. She makes me an appointment with a physical therapist and a neurologist, a specialist dealing with nerves.

I leave her exam room and I am angry. I say to myself, and blow my top about it to Mary: “Why . . . . why didn’t someone---a doctor or specialist or anybody---tell me to get treatment immediately? None of them said a word to me about any treatment that was available.”

I now understand the treatment must come quickly after it begins if it is going to help. If you get no treatment and, if it doesn’t go away on its own as WebMD believes it usually does, you are probably going to be stuck with it . . . and its ramifications . . . from now on.

(And now, after a heart cath and two surgeries . . .)

(From Chapter Eight) My cancer is gone (at least for now), my lymphedema is history, and my Bell’s Palsy has done its damage which I will live with. My vision is not good. My right eye is fine, but I catch myself closing my blurry left eye, and reading and watching television with only my right eye. I still have some minor obstacles ahead of me but nothing I can’t handle. The loss of feeling with the left side of my tongue has affected my speaking and I am concerned that I am hard to understand; so, I speak slower and more deliberate. The left side of my face continues to sag, and some skin gathers near my chin.

I am not ready for solid foods. I’m not ready for golf again . . . but I am alive and, so far, I am not scheduled for anything requiring a waiting room . . . no crying kids, no narrow aisles, no flowery chairs, no Volkswagen beetles, no . . .