Day 296, Year 7: Back to ‘Number One’
Date: Thursday, August 30, 2012
Weather: Sunny and Warm
Location: Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
Mark and I headed back to Mass General Hospital today, this time for an
appointment with a surgeon having specialties in hyperparathyroidism and
non-invasive parathyroid surgery. I’ll get to the details of that in a
minute, but first I must remark about the ‘number one’ status of Mass
General. As we drove down the streets of Boston close to Mass General, we
noticed the banners along the street declaring Mass General as #1. We were
aware of this status when we visited a month ago, but the city has now had
time to take official action to promote this honor. Theis comes from the US
News & World Report 2012-2013 Best Hospitals Honor Roll. Johns Hopkins has
held this position for the past 21 years, but now Mass General has moved
into that position. We feel so lucky to be able to take advantage of the
expertise at Mass General.
Now back to today’s visit. Mark has had blood tests every two weeks for
months as part of his chemotherapy regimen and during that time his calcium
blood levels have risen and stayed high. For that reason, his oncologist
referred him to a parathyroid specialist to check out the problem. High
levels of calcium in the blood usually mean that one or more of the four
parathyroid glands has stopped functioning properly and needs to be removed.
That condition is called hyperparathyroidism. The parathyroid specialist we
met with in July recommended waiting a year before taking any action, but
she did refer us to a surgeon to get a second opinion. Today we met with
that surgeon, Dr. Antonia Stephen. She graduated from Harvard Medical, did
a stint at the Cleveland Clinic, and then took a position at Mass General.
We were impressed from the moment she entered the examination room and it
was obvious that she is our kind of doctor. She has conducted original
research on the topic of locating parathyroid glands (the size of a grain of
rice and not easy to find) and she manages the endocrine surgical database
at Mass General. Our relationship was furthered when we found out that Dr.
Stephen lives in Woods Hole during the summer just a block from Eel Pond and
that it was her children and her nephews that delivered a gigantic stuffed
penguin to the boat next to us in the mooring field last week. Small world.
She reviewed the reports, talked with Mark, and then made her recommendation
that we proceed to surgery as soon as possible so that Mark will be ready
for our trip south in November. She set a surgery date the end of
September, but she has ordered a specific sestamibi/parathyroid scan to be
done early next week to try and locate which of the parathyroid glands might
be the problem. In 80 per cent of the cases, it is just one of the glands
that is the offender. An in-office ultrasound today showed nothing. If the
sestamibi doesn’t show anything, there is one additional scan that will be
done. If surgery still looks like the answer, it will be done on Friday,
September 29. It is non-invasive and is basically an in-and-out surgery.
Mark might be asked to spend the night depending on how the surgery goes,
but there is really no recovery time. Mark won’t be able lift heavy objects
for a month, but other than that, life should go on as usual.
After leaving Mass General, we crossed the river into Cambridge and did a
little food shopping at Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods before heading back to
the Cape. We went to Heather’s when we returned so Mark could do a little
work on the car. Last week we discovered that we had a leak in our fuel
fill line. That meant that there was a drip-drip of fuel when we were
filling the tank. It was going to cost $250 for the part plus labor to get
it fixed. So Heather and Jed’s next door neighbor, Brian, showed Mark how
to find the same part for less than $100 on Amazon. We ordered the part and
it arrived yesterday. In just twenty minutes, Mark had the part installed
and this car problem solved. We then went downtown to the Thursday Farmer’s
Market with Heather and boys. Tomorrow Mark goes to work at West Marine and
I think I’ll be watching the boys while Heather goes to work for a bit in
the morning. Who knows what the afternoon shall bring?
