Seriously???? Why is it that my medical team here in Chicago is starting to resemble a charter school staff with it’s obnoxiously high turnover rates? No one sticks around for any extended time!!! In 2017, my oncology primary care physician of 2.5 years jumped ship to become the director of another university’s adult cancer survivorship program and my dermatologist of 2 years left and is now affiliated with another highly ranked university medical system. I was re-scheduled with 2 other dermatologists last year before seeing someone–and that last doctor is gone! And now, only a little over a year of seeing a new primary care physician, she too is gone after I got notice in August that she was leaving!!!

Ok, no big deal, except now it really is. My rock star gynecologist, who I started seeing more than 15 years ago, whose practice is now up in the northern suburbs of Chicagoland, did an ultrasound on Thursday and found a polyp that she believes caused the abnormal menstrual bleeding I experienced months ago. She wants to do a D & C to remove the polyp within the month and when I left on Thursday, I was told her scheduler would be contacting me to set the procedure up–and to let me know what the results were of my follow up blood test to check on my thyroid levels which were strangely off (but most likely an anomaly because I’ve never had issues with my thyroid before).

I went to my mammogram this morning and since it was a diagnostic mammogram, I got the results right away and all was good. I also had a nice conversation with my radiologist and was able to look at my images. I find it extremely reassuring to be able to see 5 years worth of these images all at once for myself. My prior insurance company, however, considered last year’s diagnostic mammogram to be excessive and charged me $600. I sure hope my new insurance doesn’t try to pull the same thing. 😦

I then went to see my oncologist and when she heard that I have a polyp and am going to have a D & C, she decided that I should suspend my use of Tamoxifen until we get the results back. Let me tell you, after more than 6 years on Tamoxifen, this is unsettling in itself. I was able to do some scheduling before I left the medical center (seriously, there were more than 10 people waiting after me to check out by the time I was through working with the scheduler, which seems a little ridiculous for a university health care system that aspires to be outstanding) and this included an appointment with a new primary care physician who wants to focus on oncology patients–but I couldn’t get in until late November.

And so I got home and returned the phone call I had received from my rock star gynecologist’s scheduler. Turns out I need to see my primary care physician before I can have my D & C–and that my blood work shows that I might have an underactive thyroid and so I have to see the PCP about that, as well. Yippee. Skippy. And if I was back in NOLA, where I had the amazing Dr. G as my primary care physician, everything would be hunky-dory and I’d be able to get this issue resolved pretty effortlessly. But I’m not in NOLA anymore, Toto, and so even though I have used this (maybe too large and comfortable) medical center for 4 years now, they are having an impossible time getting me in to see a primary care physician within the next month. It’s the simple things, folks…