Rich has been going to Boston for his treatments and while we liked the doctor and nurses in Boston, we decided that going to Yale would work out better for us. His treatment is staying the same so the decision was based mostly on distance because that was becoming an issue. Yale is much closer so if Rich has a side effect we won’t have to drive as far. Also, though we hope it doesn’t happen, if he ever has to be in the hospital as he was when he got diabetes, it will be much closer to home. Only a little over an hour vs close to 3 hours with traffic to Boston. Yale also has a walk in clinic in case there are any issues and Rich needs to see a doctor outside of office hours so that appealed to us as well.
We just met with the people at Yale last week. The doctor there answered all of our questions and was upfront about things. We both liked him and we liked the nurses on his team as well. Rich will be having his scans there this Friday (February 1st) and his first treatment there will be on February 7th. On treatment day we will be told how the MRI and CT scan look. Keeping positive while also trying to keep the anxiety at bay.
In some ways, I will miss going to Boston. I’ll miss the doctors (both the radiation oncologist and his regular oncologist. Both of them were always very patient and took time to answer anything I asked (and I asked a lot of questions). I’ll also miss the infusion nurses. Rich has had 6 treatments there and we had seen the same people almost every time. Sounds strange but in that time frame I felt like they understood where I’m at better than some of the people who have known me for years do.
All in all, I think Yale being a closer to home will reduce some of the stress. Sitting in Boston traffic can be maddening and since the treatment is the same in both places it just makes sense to go closer to home.