More Tests -- The Waiting Was the Hardest Part

After returning from Bilboa and San Sebastian, Will had more tests and doctor visits. First he had an bronchoscopy/biopsy. which was done at the local clinic. (Note: CUF is the name of a private hospital system in Portugal. Our doctors' offices were at the CUF clinic in Cascais. Soon, we had reason to visit several other CUF loctions in Lisbon.) Following that test, the doctor who performed the test indicated that he did not see any abnormalities. However, he cautioned us to wait for the pathology results before too much celebrating. Whatever...we celebrated just a little. So we had a couple of weeks of feeling pretty good about the situation.

After more than two weeks of waiting, Will was scheduled to meet with his pulmonologist. He asked me to join him so that I would see Dr. Manaças "in action." Will had told me how weird this guy was during his first visit with him. Even though I told him that I believed him, he really wanted me to come. I'm glad I went. First of all, Dr. Manaças spoke very little English. That was unusual from our experience with the other doctors we had met. (I was better at deciphering spoken and written Portuguese than Will.) But it hardly mattered becausethe doctor hardly spoke at all. Just as Will had described, he sat at his computer and tapped away at his keyboard. For about 10minutes! He did not respond to any questions...just kept tapping away. I was stifling giggles and could not make eye contact with Will. I told him later that I was wondering if he was accessing WebMD online. Dr. Manaças finally printed out some papers and handed them to me. I was busy trying to pick out the meaning when the doctor told me that he was going to schedule a PET scan and wanted us to schedule a consultation with an oncologist. Things got pretty real at that point.

We met with the oncologist a few days later and she showed us the scan of the tumor in his lung. Scheduling the PET scan was a bit of a challenge but it finally got scheduled for a few days later. When Will arrived for the scan, he was turned away because his blood sugar was too high. Ugh. We had another distraction tour scheduled, so the scan was set up for when about 10 days later. So...while we waited, we set off to Spain for another distraction tour.

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