Nightmarish

Tony spent a good part of the morning on the phone with Sloan Kettering's very nice, very helpful physician's referral service. We have an appointment with one of their thoracic oncologists for 12/24 at 8:15 a.m. That's the easy part.
The rest is a nightmare. First of all, Sloan insists on seeing me after the PET scan (slated for this Thursday) but BEFORE any further treatment. Well, my next chemo is schedule for 12/16. I don't exactly like the idea of just blowing it off. So I have a call in to Dr. Sunkin in hopes of hearing from him today as he has a layover somewhere on his way to San Antonio for a week's conference. I want his opinion about postponing Chemo #4 by almost two weeks. We supposedly have only 24 hours to get back to Sloan to confirm the appointment, so the clock is ticking.
Then, there are insurance issues. We'll need our primary care doc to sweet-talk our current insurer into covering the Sloan visit. Hopefully, he'll be as successful as Sunkin just was getting the PET scan covered.
The biggest nightmare then has to do with future insurance coverage. Tony had worked it all out, we thought, to switch the first of the year, in part to ensure we could go to a place like Sloan if we wanted. But it turns out that what he had planned for new coverage does not work for Sloan, according to their billing dept. With only weeks left to go, he has to go back to the drawing board. Since this is not theoretical but real-life issues of coverage, the pressure is enormous to be sure we make the right decisions.
And then there's the whole question of what this possibly changed chemo schedule does to our family Christmas celebration, planned for New Year's weekend when, presumably, I would be recovered from the Dec. 16th chemo. Hamilton & Annette just booked their plane tickets for New Year's weekend. Guess we'll just have to leave plans as they are. I just hope I get to enjoy everyone.
Maybe if I felt tip-top, it wouldn't all seem so daunting to work out. We will obviously chip away at one issue at a time. For now, I am waiting for the phone to ring from Sunkin, or his office. Fingers crossed it rings. That's Step #1, to get his take on putting the chemo off.