I recently listened to Tig Notaro’s set where she talks about losing her mom and having cancer. It’s a great set, and you should go get it if you haven’t heard it.

In it, she talks about the fact that her mom had an illness and died in the hospital. Shortly thereafter, her mom received a “how was your stay” survey from the hospital by mail. I got one of these surveys after my surgery, and I happily filled it out. Here’s the thing, though… I was still alive.

Tig talks about the need for a very simple system: two lists. One for the people that are alive, and one for the people who’ve died. Then, you only send the surveys to the people on the first list.

Cut to yesterday afternoon…

I was at work, and my cell phone rang. By now, I’m able to recognize the area code and exchange of “my” hospital, so I pick it up, thinking it’s my doctor’s office calling about an upcoming appointment.

Instead, I spent the next few minutes talking with Brenda. Brenda was very friendly, and had her script very well rehearsed; and Brenda was calling to raise money for the hospital.

I have no doubt that soliciting donations from former patients, people whose lives the hospital has helped save, is a very effective plan. However, here’s another place where two lists are needed.

List 1: People who’ve been treated at the hospital and are now cured.
List 2: People who are still actively being treated by the hospital.

Then, just call the people on list #1.

I awkwardly answered some of Brenda’s questions (awkward since they veered into how/why I had interacted with the hospital), and then politely told her that I’d had a fair number of medical bills this year, even with insurance, and wouldn’t be in a position to make a donation at this time. She completely understood, but did I know that any amount helps, and the number of donors affects their success with grant applications, etc.? Would I be able to participate at any level…?

I finally had to be really blunt, and a little obnoxious, and say, “look, I’m going to have about ten thousand dollars in medical bills this year, so I’m really not in a position to make a donation of any amount to the hospital. Thank you and goodbye.”

Two lists… that’s all I’m saying.

Sadly (or perhaps happily), dear readers, I have nothing exciting to share with you about my latest chemo treatment this past Wednesday. It was number 8 out of 12, so I’m now 2/3 of the way through. One more in December; two more in January; and one more in February, and then I’m done. I’m definitely seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, but I wish it was over already.

Overall, things went pretty smoothly this time around. My blood counts were “borderline” enough that my nurse had to check with the oncologist as to whether or not it was okay to proceed (my platelets continued to trend downward – down to 92 this time), but once we got the okay everything went pretty normally. I was done in a little over four hours, which is normal, and headed home.

I slept a lot this past weekend. Despite this being my eighth treatment, I still feel like I’m trying to figure out what combination of medication works best for me. I find that the more I sleep, the better I feel, even on my bad days. And my body pretty much wants to sleep, so it’s not hard to do.

Case in point: Friday I got disconnected from my portable pump at 2pm. I signed off from work around 4pm and napped between 6-8pm. Then, I went to bed around 10:30 and slept until after 1pm on Saturday. Saturday night I went to bed between 10-11 and slept until around noon on Sunday.

So, not a very productive weekend, but I felt better, and on Sunday had much less nausea and discomfort than I normally have.

Four more to go…