Finding Humor at Mayo

Today was interesting to say the least at the Mayo Clinic, we checked in at 3:00 for a 3:15 appointment with Dr Pockji (oncology surgeon) When we arrived there were about 20-30 people waiting to see their doctors. Eric says "wake me up when they call your name" I put my head back and try to get an eye rest also. After an hour, I asked them if I had been checked in correctly, because it has never taken this long. She cheerfully tells me that "yes you are all checked in" Seriously? It is now 1 1/2hours past our appointment time and NO-ONE is left in the waiting area, well with the exception of the Williams.
They finally take us back, and an hour later Dr Pockji comes in. She apologized and said that one of the surgeons did not show up this morning, so she had double the load today.....I'm thinking I wonder how many years this lady had to go to school to get a degree of medicine, I know she is a logical smart woman right? So why did she not know THIS MORNING if she was taking on another Surgeons load of patients, that she might get a little behind, that perhaps someone in the office... like her physicians assistant could of given me a call and told me to reschedule or come a little later so that I would not have to wait for 3 hours to see the the Doctor...??Just one of those things that make you go.... UM duh?
Now the serious stuff for a minute
Dr. Pockji explained to me the surgeries I need to have, at this point she was wanting me to have all of them in one day, which would be 18 hours of surgery, 18 hours of being under anesthesia? I don't think so....I told her as fun as that sounds, I would have to decline at this time...ha ha..actually I told her that my son is leaving to go out of the country for 2 years and I will not be able to talk to him (with the exception of Christmas and Mothers Day)or see him in those 2 years, so it is important for me to spend some time with him, I really don't want him to see me after surgery, also that my daughter is getting married on November 14Th, and I still have alot of planning to do, and that my other daughter is having a baby in December and would like me to be in the delivery room with her. Dr. Pockji kinda looked at me like "what the heck, who are you?" but she agreed that this would be way too much surgery with everything I have going on in my personal life, she said that the wedding and baby are more important right now than anything else. She explained to me that I will be having another surgery anyway in 5-6 months so at that time we will do the other procedures that I need done, including the hysterectomy. I can't believe the relief I feel knowing that instead of having 5 different surgeries going on at one time I have cut it down to 2. So just like that...I put 3 of my surgeons on hold...WOW the power I have today huh? Now if I could just have the power to get this nasty old cancer to leave my body.
So this is what is happening now: The last week of Sept or 1st Week of Oct I will be on the schedule for my mastectomy and beginning of the reconstruction surgery. After the surgery she will be able to tell us more about what stage the cancer is in, they know for sure that one of them is in stage 2-3, and something new I found out today is that both of these cancers are different, one is ductal carcinoma, and the other one is a hormone fed carcinoma. (this one I need to find out more about)
OK back to the funny stuff, when Eric and I left, there was not one other person in the building, except for the 5 or 6 maintenance people who were coming in to clean, Eric and I laughed as we skipped to the car, Eric wanted to sing on the top of his lungs and do cartwheels in the halls...if you have ever been to the Mayo Clinic you would understand that reaction, it is normally wall to wall people, busy people trying to get to appointments or nurses and doctors rushing to somewhere, when we arrived we had a really hard time getting a parking space, now the parking lot had our car and maybe 3 others, we decided those must of been the maintenance workers cars...this may not seem funny to you but to us we enjoyed it. We ended up being in Dr Pockji's office for 3 hours by the time we left, and I think only us and her remained in the building, which is a pretty large facility. Its good to have a few answers today, not that it changes anything, but it takes my stress level down a little to know I will have 2 surgeries instead of one big huge 18 hour one.