Sooner or Later

After testing negative for COVID on Christmas Day, I was moved from my rather luxurious single isolation room to a semi-private room which, at least for the first night was just occupied by me – and by the window no less. And I was very pleased that the steroid I’d been prescribed, had relieved the “brain fog” I’d been suffering from for the previous few days.

The “modified holiday menu” that day included a chocolate yule log dessert which was quite edible.  I know everyone likes to dump on hospital food but for the 13 days I was in hospital I ate everything that was brought on my tray and only once was there mystery meat – which I ate anyway.  Perhaps I’m just not that picky – or perhaps I subscribe to the thinking that if I don’t have to make it myself, it can’t be all bad LOL!

The next day I received a “roommate” who highlighted for me the challenges staff face in caring for patients when their first (or perhaps even second) language is not English. This was actually the case with most of my fellow patients: Chinese (I couldn’t tell if it was Mandarin, Cantonese or another dialect), Greek, Italian, Portuguese. Not surprising of course considering the diversity of the city or that the hospital was barely a five-minute walk to Kensington Market. It was impressive to hear how staff would make every effort to be understood – made even more challenging by their need to wear masks and sometimes face shields. Sometimes this meant contacting an adult son or daughter by phone (visitors being restricted by then) to help with translation. Sometimes if the messaging was less critical (like “Mr X, you need to eat”) it meant using Google Translate from their phones. Sometimes it meant asking a fellow staff member who spoke the patient’s language to assist. And sometimes – usually a conversation with a doctor – staff could book a phone appointment with an official translator (through AT&T I think) who had training in medical terminology. In every case I was privy to (and curtains between beds are definitely not intended to be soundproof LOL) staff made every possible effort while being pleasant and respectful.

After a couple of nights in the semi-private room, I was moved to the 4th floor into a 4-bed ward. My OPS colleagues would probably ask why, when my health plan included semi-private coverage, I would not ask for one.  I knew OMICRON was ramping up and semis were needed for isolation until COVD tests came back. Within a couple more nights, I was moved to another 4-bed ward on the third floor so they could change the fourth into a COVID floor. It just seemed a bit selfish (and probably pointless) to even ask.

My sisters, while not allowed to visit, sent up care packages of clean underwear, socks, books, toiletries, and even some food. During the last move, my phone charger disappeared – and luckily they rushed a replacement to me or things would have got pretty tense! LOL

While patients weren’t required to wear masks in their room, they also weren’t allowed to leave their room unless going to or from an appointment. Either a hospital porter would arrive with a stretcher or a transfer ambulance team with their stretcher.  I was probably no more than 12 steps to the washroom but there was no way of getting any exercise like laps around the floor’s corridors that you might have done pre-COVID. I really wasn’t feeling bad so made sure to get dressed every day and usually sat in a chair beside the bed to read, listen to audiobooks, or watch tv or videos on my phone.

Biopsy

The next steps were to schedule a biopsy so they could confirm the type of cancer. The obvious culprit was lung cancer since that was the largest tumour so for this, I was under the care of a thoracic (i.e. lung) oncologist, Dr. Liu at Princess Margaret, but the procedure itself was done at Toronto Western. After more scans and x-rays, I was given a local anesthetic. The biopsy itself consists of taking numerous “core samples” of the tumour using special needles while watching under some high-resolution cameras to ensure accuracy. I don’t recall the whole procedure taking more than 30-45 minutes and was painless. Because of the holidays and staff shortages due to COVID, it was made clear that the results may take 10-14 days which was longer than usual.

Back in the ward, and after various follow-up x-rays, a small pneumothorax (or collapse of a portion of the lung) was identified. Luckily it was small enough that supplemental oxygen was all that was prescribed. It did mean some further reduction of mobility but after several days, it disappeared and the oxygen was no longer required.

UHN Portal

Any of you familiar with any of the University Health Network Hospitals (Toronto General, Toronto Western, Princess Margaret, and Toronto Rehab) will probably also be familiar with the UHN Portal. It’s a one-stop website that contains all your appointments and all your test results, and can also send you email notifications when new entries are made. So those of us with a smartphone (and English as our first language…) would get the information at the same time as the attending doctor – and often hours before they were actually able to tell you in person lol.  It’s true that some of the information definitely used obscure (at least to a layman) medical terminology but one could generally get the gist of it. For example, it was clear that over several x-rays of my lung post-biopsy, the pneumothorax was shrinking and eventually undetectable.

The “clinic notes” were the most amusing though. They all began:

Mr. Stephens is a pleasant 64-year-old gentleman diagnosed recently with...

I mean I think I was very pleasant with the doctors and was initially flattered. After the third oncologist used the same wording, I started to wonder what description they’d use for a grumpy patient who may or may not have behaved very gentlemanly LOL.

Now we just had to wait for the results of the biopsy and various related blood tests. And arrange a consultation with a neuro (i.e. brain) oncologist.

NEXT UP: Total Brain Radiation