Bad News

As my new subscribers may not know, in May of 2023 I was diagnosed with ocular melanoma. Although at the end of December of 2024, a conventional blood test came back with no concerning cancer markers, a spot in my spleen and some spots in my liver showed up on a CT scan I did five days later.

To get a better sense of what was going on, my oncologist then ordered an MRI.

I had the MRI two weeks later. It confirmed that I had a large mass in my spleen and another in my liver, along with several smaller growths, also in my liver. So the oncologist recommended a PET scan to find out if the growths were malignant.

She ordered an “emergency” PET scan. This was the middle of January, almost a month ago.

Only the order never went through.

She’d told me to sit tight and wait and that I’d hear back about scheduling. I didn’t hear back, from anyone. But even though I felt something was wrong, I was distracted by work and writing deadlines. Plus, I’m a little claustrophobic and I wasn’t looking forward to exposing myself to PET scan radiation, so I put it all out of my mind.

The silence from the schedulers continued. I finally called the oncologist to figure out why I hadn’t heard from anyone and was told the order was listed as “pending” on their end, which meant they were waiting for insurance approval.

Then I called the insurance company several times. They told me they never received an order from the oncologist.

“Pending,” in this case, was a euphemism for “lost” or “never submitted.”

After clearing all the bureaucratic hurdles and despite a white-out snowstorm, which made it very hard to drive, I got the results of the PET scan on Monday, February 3.

It’s not good news.