Follow Up Appointment

We drove back up to UCLA this morning for a post-surgery follow up appointment. Dr. P is pleased with Michael's recovery so far, and he removed some of the dressings, but he didn't have the pathology report yet. He will call us later this week with that information. Dr. P advised us to make an appointment with Dr. K next week to discuss the next step which will be medically treating the disease.

So, now we're in the position of getting another referral from our medical group that will allow us to see Dr. K. It's so ridiculous! What should be a linear progression from one doctor to the next has way too many loops back to the general practitioner. Bureaucracies are heavy on policies and procedures and short on common sense. Grrr... Come October, it should be slightly less cumbersome because Michael will be a member of the UCLA Medical Group. Anyway, we have a call in to our GP. Hopefully we'll get that referral this week.

Michael is doing well. He's tired, but that's to be expected. He's eating small portions, but at least food doesn't seem repulsive to him. He coughs less than before, but he still has a cough. And last night he had the night sweats for the first time since the surgery. That was disappointing. It all just points to the fact that surgery was just the first step in this process of healing.