MD Anderson Cancer Center: Voyage to a Strange Planet

March 24:  The medical complex here in Houston is the largest in the world, and it seems like a strange planet we are traversing.  MD Anderson is one of 14 different complexes, and MD Anderson itself is gigantic—many buildings of many stories.  There are huge departments for each kind of cancer, and they have a very thorough system set up to help navigate the paperwork, tests, scans, meetings with nurses, residents and doctors, etc.   

Our initial appointment to register and start out the process was at 6:30am (4:30 am California time) so you can imagine that we are pretty tired.  The hotel we are staying at is walking distance, and they also have shuttle service, which is nice.  There is  a light rail system across the street, and shops/restaurants within walking distance.  The whole area is totally full of medical personnel, walking around in their scrubs.  There are SO many people here at all of these medical complexes—it is really sad to think about it and also pretty scary.

I get the feeling that everyone here knows their job to the nth degree.  As a small example, the blood draw was a room full of people getting their blood drawn, and I don’t think it took more than a minute start to finish, plus I did not feel a thing.  Our first meeting was with the main doctor, a surgeon.  He was a powerhouse of a person who as he said “pulled no punches” and explained the surgical option in great detail to us (“ick” is all I have to say, but I am trying to be open minded.) As we were told by our doctors in Berkeley and in SF, what is uncommon to them is relatively commonly seen here.   Now I am waiting to meet the medical oncologist.  Tomorrow I have a CT scan in the morning, then a meeting with the radiation oncologist. It is all very exhausting.   On Thursday, all of the doctors meet to discuss the cases as a team, and I will receive a phone call on Friday with their recommendations and hopefully some treatment options for me to decide upon.