Dang, that is some serious scheduling shifting y'all have had. I'm sorry.

Cancelled tix, got a refund, booked new tix for 7:45 pm, getting into SFO 9:15ish. Home by 10pm.

Boo.

And then we've got one week before we have to come back again, since we're keeping on schedule.

So instead of traveling 4 days out of 14, we'll be traveling 10 days out of 18.

loosey goosey scheduling

Yeah. You're learning. They won't.

In my case, the hitch was always that the treatment center wouldn't put the request for meds through to the (fortunately on-site) pharmacy until I was actually seated in the treatment chair. Sometimes it only took 45 minutes for the meds to arrive. Usually is was 60 or 75.

Also adding to the schedule were multiple check-ins, lobby waits, blood draws, doctor consults, and pre-med infusions.

So, "oh, chemo is only an hour" turned into "arrive at 6:45 a.m., leave at 12:30 p.m."

That is a high proportion of travel time!

I am about to take advantage of tomorrow being another in office day to leave while my laptop is shutting down and not pack up all my stuff. I might even take my unburdened self to happy hour. Or Target. Target should have a happy hour.

In my case, the hitch was always that the treatment center wouldn't put the request for meds through to the (fortunately on-site) pharmacy until I was actually seated in the treatment chair.

I mentioned to our nurse as soon as we sat down to check on the drugs from the pharmacy, because I knew the clinical study meds have to go through a rigorous checkout process.

And the issue is that JZ can't eat until a half hour after she takes those meds, and they got delayed to 3pm, so lunch was at 3:30.

On the one hand, I don't want to be a nudge with the nurses and the coordinator and the doctor. OTOH, there are all these little details that fall between the cracks if you don't and all of a sudden you're cancelling airplane tickets and buying new ones on the fly.

As, for example, our nurse just noticed that nobody had put in the order for the saline push when we get the pump off, and that would've been a huge fucking drag on Wednesday to show up without an appointment for that.

So much of it is rote for them and they just want to bang through their list, but there are so many elements in play and it's complicated by being a clinical study.

Also adding to the schedule were multiple check-ins, lobby waits, blood draws, doctor consults, and pre-med infusions.

We experienced all of those today! Which is why we showed up at 9:30am and they didn't have her in a chair for the infusion until 2pm.

Target should have a happy hour.

That would supplant Ikea meatballs in the grand hierarchy.

We experienced all of those today! Which is why we showed up at 9:30am and they didn't have her in a chair for the infusion until 2pm.

In a lesser tier of medical annoyances, it took 90 minutes of medical minutiae (WHY) before Tim got to the actual steroid infusion part, which took literally 7 minutes. It'll take 2 or 3 days before he notices any effect. I hope it's a substantial effect.

all these little details that fall between the cracks if you don't

Yep. The trick is to learn the protocol and find ways to help the flow rather than hinder it. In twelve infusions I only had the same nurse twice, but I could listen to the flow of conversations and the tones and get an idea of how well their day was going.

I took some pride in always being early and well-prepared and as self-sufficient as I could be. If there were any delays, it wasn't due to me.

It really sucks that you had to learn how to do that, dcp.