One of the worst things that can happen to someone who has been through a cancer experience like mine is to hear a message on their answering machine from their doctor's office that they are not expecting...

I came home from running some errands this morning with my two youngest to find a message on my answering machine from someone at my surgeon's office asking me to return their call.  This was a very unexpected call and I immediately returned it when I heard the message and I got the office's answering service.  The lady told me that they were at lunch so I should try calling back after 1:00 (it was about 12:15 at the time).  The only thing that I could think as to why they would be calling was to possibly discuss the results from my latest CT scan.  To this point I had not heard the results of the scan and my husband and I had talked about it just the day before and that we thought it was strange that I hadn't heard anything from Huntsman about it.  I had mentioned that I would try contacting someone in the office if I didn't hear anything in the next day or two so I took the time while I was waiting to talk to my surgeon's office to email my nurse practitioner at Huntsman asking about it.

So fast forward to 1:00 and I try calling the surgeon's office again and again I get the answering service.  The lady tells me that they haven't switched over the phones yet so to wait a few more minutes and then try again.  So I wait a few more minutes and then 15 more minutes and then I call again at 2:00.  Still no response from the office.  I asked the lady with the answering service if I could just leave a message for them to return and she said that they usually don't check with her for any messages - so what is the point of having the answering service?!?!?  At 2:30 she told me that they were in a meeting until around 3:30.  What?!?  This was getting ridiculous!  (And unfortunately my husband was at a genealogy conference downtown and I didn't want to get him all worried and possibly worked up over what would hopefully turn out to be nothing...  The thought did go through my mind though that if my surgeon wanted to see me in her office that afternoon - which would most definitely mean bad news - I would try and get ahold of my husband and possibly pick him up on my way there.)

Around 2:00 my phone rang and I was hoping that it was the surgeon's office (although up to this point they don't even know that I have been trying to call!).  It turned out to be my study coordinator at Huntsman and she apologized for not calling me about my CT scan results.  She said that she thought that the nurse had called me and apparently the nurse thought that the study coordinator had called me...  She said that she had the results back the same evening as my scan and that everything looked good in it!  She said that one of the "scar" areas in my liver had shrunk in size which is good news as well - my liver is still healing from the two areas that were resected.  I asked her if she knew why my surgeon would be calling and she thought that it was probably just a follow-up from my last visit - just a guess though.

So I finally called the surgeon's office again around 4:00 and finally was able to talk to the person who had left me a message at 11:30 that morning...  She said that she had a note to remind herself to call me with my results from my pap smear that had been done at the beginning of the month - of which I had already been called about a couple of days after my appointment.  She thought that she had just left a message on my answering machine with the results, but I remember talking to someone from the office about it.  And everything had been normal with the results...

I was quite exhausted by the end of all of that!  What a nerve wracking afternoon it had been for me!