Sharon Frado Rocks

Monday, July 17, 2006 - I was planning to call Sharon, the woman who handles Dr. Califano's schedule as soon as I got to work. However, as I was walking out the door, the phone rang. It was Sharon. She told me that she understood I wanted to get on Dr. Califano's surgical schedule and that she was calling to set this up. I was stunned. I saw this as another sign that Dr. Califano was meant to be my surgeon.

The first day that she mentioned was Friday, as in, Friday of that week. I was stunned once again that I could get on his schedule so quickly. Oops, she corrected herself as she remembered that Dr. Califano was seeing patients that Friday and not doing surgery. Fully expecting something the following week, she then mentioned Wednesday as in, the day after tomorrow. Wow. Not only would I be getting Dr. Califano for my surgery but I would only be losing one day based on what I already had scheduled!

As it turns out, getting on the schedule was the easy part. Now I had to scramble to get my pre-operative physical and blood work completed by my primary care physician. I had just gone to do this the previous Thursday in preparation for my surgery with Dr. Gurian. I knew I could have those records faxed up to Hopkins but the problem was Hopkins required certain tests that I didn't have done. The triage nurse at my PCP office was great. I explained the situation to her and she took me in without an appointment and drew the blood needed for the two tests I hadn't yet had done. However, she could not promise that they would have the results in time for my surgery on Wednesday. I could only pray that they would come back quickly but for some reason I felt that this was meant to be so I had faith that it would all work out.

Besides the blood test, I also had to come up with the original pathology slides from my initial biopsy. After calling everywhere I could think of to find these things, I finally was able to track down the Histology lab at Reston Hospital where they were kept. I was in luck. They maintain three sets of slides, two of which they has sent to the AFIP to verify the pathology which meant that they still had one set and they were willing to "loan" them to me. Sharon told me they needed these slides right away so I was ready to drive them up to Hopkins myself but it turned out that I could bring them with me at the time of my surgery. Everything was falling into place. I just had to call Dr. Gurian's office to cancel that surgery. I hoped they weren't going to be mad that I was cancelling the day before.