August 11, 2025

 Treatment Day...Or at least that's what was scheduled. 

After lots of thinking about things that happened recently, Friday I decided to talk to Nathan and get his thoughts on a couple of things. If I cancelled my Aug.11 appt with the local treatment center, I would have no way to get my lab work done and know how my immune system looks at this point. I also wouldn't know how my thyroid levels look to know if I need to continue the prescription for that. I also wouldn't know what my local oncologist's opinion was. We agreed that I should not cancel the appt.

I go to my scheduled appt this morning. I arrive early, as usual. Today, they were able to get the ball rolling early so I was called back 15 min before my scheduled appt. Temp and BP look good, bloodwork took a little longer to get going. It was cold in the building and my hands were cold, so my finger prick wouldn't give her blood. Par for the course...When she finally gets the amount needed for the lab work, she takes me back to the patient room. I wait for the oncologist. Today was actually an appt with her, not one of her assistants. I can hear her thru the wall conversing with another patient. I tried hard not to hear their conversation. You would think they would do a better job of trying to sound-proof the walls since it's private and personal conversations being had. Then it was my turn. 

Dr. Merten comes into the room and begins to address the reaction I had to the new treatment. While I'm trying to describe it to her, she cuts me off, asking if I thought it was a reaction to this or that or both, and as I try to explain further, she cuts me off again, saying that the reactions are normal. No. No one wishes to be dead rather than feel that way. She's not listening to me already. So she goes on to talk about the treatment and I finally get a chance to speak and begin to tell her about the recent mammogram and MRI scans done at VCU and their results. She never even said that the tests were good or anything positive about them. She was indifferent and acted as if she already knew the results. She may have, as VCU said they would share the tests with her office, but give me some positivity. She kept on about pursing the current treatment plan, but that I have options. My turn again. I told her I understand that I have options, to include taking out the Neulasta, reducing the dosages, and the option to stopping and going to surgery, and if there happens to be evidence of further disease that it could be addressed with chemo again. She cut me off and started with  "oh NO! NONONO! That's NOT how we do things!! We do not do that!" Stunned and taken aback myself, I stopped talking. She went on about the current treatment plan and it being to clear up any residual cancer that may be in my body. Unable to speak, I have thoughts like "then why not stay on chemo forever? Or just start giving everyone chemo like multivitamins to take care of any potential cancers in the body?" None of that was vocalized. I just sat there while she was up on her soap box. At one point she did say that if disease was still present after surgery, then an oral form of chemo can be given. Isn't that what I said before her "nonono" tirade? When she was done, I told her that I was not doing treatment today. I wanted to find out what her opinion was and what the tumor board had to say. She was not happy about my decision. She asked if I'd called the office to let them know I wasn't doing treatment today, and was even more upset when I told her no. By the time I had gotten the MRI results and had time to try to process things, it was late Friday afternoon. Plus, I wasn't FULLY convinced until this morning that I wasn't going to do treatment. She said that they could have used that chair for someone else.....the next thought that comes to mind was what if my labs weren't good and I couldn't have done treatment today anyway? There still would have been an empty chair.... WTH. Rude. 

So then she does a small physical exam and was asking if I was just feeling the fatigue from the meds. I told her no. I don't eat much anymore (she looked at my weight for today and said apparently I'm eating enough to get by..my weight hasn't fluctuated much) and I don't sleep. I'm up every couple of hours to pee, chemo + menopause = hot flashes all night... to which she only offered to write me a script to help me sleep. No pill is gonna make me not have to pee and not go thru menopause. I told her "I don't want to put any more shit into my body". Then she suggested natural supplements like Melatonin to help me get to sleep. My problem is NOT going to sleep, it's waking up for one reason or another. Again, NOT LISTENING TO ME. Her response was that she can help me if I will let her. No, no she can't. 

I feel at this point she's just pushing drugs on me. We're not assessing my concerns, just trying to throw drugs at me. When she brought up treatment again, I told her that I was disappointed to find out that I could have premedicated before the last treatment. She asked me to explain. I told her that I was told after the fact that I could have taken Tylenol and Claritin ahead of time, the day of and a few days after to try to lessen the blow. She cut me off AGAIN and blurted out that she'd told me to take the Claritin since day one. I  said No. I was told to get this list of over the counter stuff to have on hand JUST IN CASE I had reactions or side effects and needed it. I wasn't sneezy or itchy or anything like that so I wasn't taking the Claritin. No one had explained to me until recently how it works against the side effects of these chemo drugs. You think allergy pill = allergic reaction to something. I wasn't having that. She wasn't happy when I was blunt back with her. She just went back to the fact that she's keeping my appt on the schedule for tomorrow for the Keytruda and told me to call after I heard from VCU and what I decided to do. Told you she wasn't listening to me. I'm not doing treatment at this point unless for some reason my VCU oncologist recommends it after discussions with the tumor board. And after today, I will drive to VCU for treatment if necessary.

Never have I ever felt like a Dr didn't really care about me or my concerns until today. I really felt that she was working for Big Pharma and was just pushing drugs on me. Needless to say, I didn't bother asking her why she was saying that I needed to stay on the Keytruda (Immunotherapy) even if I wasn't doing the chemo... in my mind it doesn't make sense to keep taking that if I'm not compromising my immune system, but there may be a reason. I just wasn't gonna ask and get another "standard of care" response. 

I got home and downloaded the details of my appointment to Nathan. Needless to say, he was just as angry as I was. We agreed that Roanoke would no longer handle my care. He got on the phone and started getting things going with VCU being my primary care provider thru the rest of this. God bless him. 💖

Frustrating way to start off a Monday.