MD Anderson

I’m writing from the Plane          As we pulled out of the driveway Cary said, “Well you haven’t woken me up to say this is just a dream, so I guess we are going to do this.

Everything I hear about MD Anderson is positive. I haven’t made it there yet, but all my interactions thus far have been positive. I’ve learned a lot. 

They first called me on my way out of the hospital from getting my MRI results to get health insurance information and start working to set up an appointment time.  I haven’t ever really been sick before, so the slowness of medical time is new to me and it is foreign.  Don’t take this to mean MD Anderson is slow, quite the opposite.  I am in awe of how quickly they have gotten me in and how efficiently they operate. To explain: my appointment is tomorrow, Friday, at 9:00 in the morning. I called to try to figure out when to get a flight home.  I was expecting an explanation like, “You should be done by 3:00.” What I got was, “We tell people to plan to be here 3-5 days.” What! Well, ok.  They did look at my chart and told me I could leave Saturday evening, probably.

There’s an App for That Seriously, there is an MD Anderson app.  They way it works is you set up an account online.  They send an email saying you have a message.  You go check the message.  Eventually there will be lab reports and other things there.  Most of my messages are about surveys and appointment times, which are adding up. So far: 9:00 initial visit stuff, 9:30 brain doctor, 10:00 lab work, 12:00 neck and head doctor (this appointment is 15 minutes). (As a friend said, if they are trying to fix my head it will take a lot longer than 15 minutes. And that is why I love her!) 1:00 nuclear medicine injection, 3:00 full body bone scan, 4:45 MRI of my face.

Housing I think there are 6 hospitals within walking distance of each other.  It is a serious medical community.  There is a website Joeshouse.org that helps patients find affordable housing for their stay because most everything is outpatient.  We are staying in a 2 bedroom apartment.  It think that’s a great deal & we can walk to the hospital. I’ve heard everything is connected by skywalk. Kind of sounds like the Jetsons.  Maybe they will suck us through a tube from one place to another.

The apartment complex where we are staying. Elan Med Center