200 Feet to the Lung Doctor
In the midst of dealing with the knot on Grandma’s neck, we were informed by Dr. Elliott’s office that the second CT Scan showed something on her lungs, too. Because of that, Dr. Elliott’s office made an appointment for Grandma with a pulmonologist…a lung specialist. This appointment was set up after the biopsy and way before we found out the knot was cancer.
We made the trip back to St Mary’s Center for Advanced Medicine to meet with the pulmonologist, Dr. Uvieghara. We made it to the appointment and explained the situation up to that point to the nurse. Then the nurse, checked Grandma’s blood oxygen level to find it was 94. The nurse said that was a good level. Dr. Uvieghara came in to begin his examination of Grandma. He said, “hello,” and asked why she was there. He went on to ask a lot of the same assessment questions she had been asked before…do you smoke…for how long, etc. He was unaware that a Lung CT and PET scan had already been completed on Grandma.
He checked her lung sounds and asked if she coughs up phlegm a lot. Then he asked about her blood oxygen level. Upon reviewing it, he said that it looked fine right now. Then, he asked, “had you been walking around a lot when it was so low?”
Grandma told him that when she walks, she gets out of breath, which was something I was not aware of until this appointment. Dr. Uvieghara had the nurse take her for a walk…a 200 foot walk around the hospital.
When they came back, I asked how her level was. They checked it again and it was down to 87, which was not good. The doctor decided to have her take another walk to find it fall even further to 84. At this point, they put Grandma on oxygen for about 10 minutes and then tried the walk again. Her level was at or around 97, which was really good. After assessing her situation, Dr. Uvieghara decided that Grandma was a good candidate for oxygen and asked if she would like try going on it.
At this point of the appointment, I spoke up to ask if this is something that will improve her lungs and help her in the long run. Dr. Uvieghara responded with, “yes.” He told us that the oxygen will help her sleep, help with her blood flow and help her catch her breath when walking for a while.
The nurse came into the room to discuss the options for oxygen tanks in town. We chose a place down the road from our house that worked with St. Mary’s.
At this point, Dr. Uvieghara came back in to review the CT Scans with us. He actually had to leave the exam room to retrieve the scans from the hospital. Dr. Elliott’s office had sent the referral to them without giving them any information on Grandma’s case. This made me think that doctors’ offices need to communicate more with each other.
After Dr. Uvieghara was able to review the biopsy on Grandma’s neck and the lung CT, he told us the two spots in the CT Scan were only about 7mm, which was too small to biopsy. He then said that if it is cancer, Grandma would have a lot of problems due to it already being in her neck. We explained to him that we were meeting with the oncologist the next day and that we already had a follow-up Lung CT scheduled for June 6th.
After he reviewed the scans with us and talked about how cancer spreads, he said, “What did you learn today, Charlotte?” Grandma responded with, “I’m not sure. What did I learn?” Dr. Uvieghara said, “STOP SMOKING.”
He then scheduled Grandma for a lung test a few days later and told the nurse to schedule a follow-up visit for June 7th, the day after her second Lung CT. He also wanted to be kept up-to-date with her progress and with what the oncologist recommended.