I was called by my doctors office, actually the Cancer Center, a few weeks ago and encouraged to see a “survivor care” specialist now that my treatment was complete (again).  When Mother Theresa (I always bring someone to my appointments) and I arrived, we were welcomed by one of the nurses I remembered from 7 years ago, Nancy B.  She and I have a daughter exactly the same age and compared notes when they were 15, 16 and 17 years old.

Nancy explained that the state requires that a cancer patient be documented and followed closely by physicians post treatment.  The idea here is to meet with the patient/survivor, and determine if there are any needs that require medical, religious or emotional attention.  Additionally a complete computer generated summary of treatment, reactions, surgeries, scans, results, etc. will be provided to me and all doctors involved in post treatment, mainly the oncologist and general physician. Nancy would be entering everything from my file into the computer.

Nancy told me she had sat down that morning an began going through my very thick file which sat before us on her desk.  It’s roughly 8 inches high and I remember one of the oncologists passing by one day saying if you had a thick file it meant that you were alive, a very good thing.  So Nancy was typing away on her keyboard when another nurse came into her office and asked, “Is that Pam Lacko’s file you are working on?”  Nancy answerd yes and that’s when the other nurse told her she was starting with Volume 4 instead of Volume 1.  Yes I have 4 eight inch files which make up my history at the Cancer Center since 2008.

Nancy said to me, “you are very complicated” to which I answered “I like to call it special”!