Driven to distraction, driving towards NY

Grown-up kids at dinner with mysterious object

Been driving a lot because...

On Wednesday I reserved a ride for the trip to Dana-Farber. I got the confirmation call the night before, and then, the day of, a call from the driver, who asked if I wanted a ride at 2.  I said yes.

So I packed up and looked out my driveway, and when at 4:06 there was no driver, I called the number he had used to call me. But I got no answer and no voicemail. I called over and over until about 4:15 and then finally gave up and called the complaint line at MART, which arranges the rides.

I got put on hold and then told that the driver had left, listing me as a no-show.

WHAT?

I said.

"I've been waiting at my door."

The operator said she would file a complaint for me but in the meantime I was on my own.

It was a company (Prevalent Transportation, one of the contractors) that has taken me a zillion times before, and they know to come in the driveway or I can't see them. This happened once before when a driver waited at the foot of the driveway, didn't see me, and left without calling. If they don't see me, they can call! They usually do. The last time this happened, the operator told me they are not obligated to come into the driveway or to call. I imagine the guy just didn't feel like doing his job.

I called my people in pheresis at the Kraft Family Blood Donor Center at Dana-Farber and asked what was the latest I could get there. They said 4:30. A friend said he would drive me but by the time he got to my house I would never make it. So around 2:30 or a little after I jumped into my car and sped off.

I made it exactly at 4:30. They were impressed. I was wired and upset.

My nurse for the day, Marlene, tried twice to thread the needle into my left arm. Twice, it hit a valve and would not go in. I didn't have the help of my oxycodone because I couldn't take it and drive. It was unpleasant but I did some slow breathing.Tina, another nurse who was there, gave it a try on the other arm and went in successfully. They said it would go faster if I tried a double – not exactly the technical term – meaning one in each arm. This is possible with the new machines. I said I wouldn't mind but I would wait for a time when I had my pain meds in case I had a problem.

I started to take a little nap when the procedure was under way, but a doctor came over to talk, so that was that. Mandy is a nice pathology fellow. I showed her some of my medical writing, such as what it's like to live with two sets of DNA, and my most recent, on how treating neuropathy can be a pain. She said I should go on TV to tell my story of the four bone marrow transplants. I said I didn't know how to do that and wasn't sure if I wanted to anyway.

I finished around 7 and got back home around 9, pretty tired. It wasn't the best timing, because the next day I had planned to pop down to New York to see some friends and family and do some of the usual things such as run in the park.

I did it anyway. I parked in New Haven and took the train to Harlem and then went on to my cousin Jeanne's. As you do when in New York, I walked all over the place. Yesterday I did around 17,000 steps.

Some of us had a nice shabbat dinner on Friday. It was extended family, kids and a baby. Time flew. I was compelled to mention this while looking at my high school friend's children and a grandchild. I thought we were just in her room making lists of the boys we liked.

For dessert, I was surprised with a pre-birthday cake. Sweet! (One Donald Trump sentence structure allowed per blog post.)

Yesterday I ran a little more than four miles to and in the park and up to the reservoir. I considered going all the way around, but I looped back on the bridal path instead.  For someone who really isn't running, I figure that isn't too bad. 

There was so much activity that I thought a race was going on, but one of the runners said it was a training run for the New York Marathon.

After leaving the park, I got a bagel and a coffee and sat on the steps of a church on Lexington Avenue about 10 blocks south of 86th and Lex, where my mother's store used to be. Lexington Avenue feels in many ways the same, but the block where my mother's jewelry store used to be has totally changed. It's one big blob instead of small stores such as my mother's and Reggie the dressmaker's.

I was going to leave after my run but headed over to UN Plaza to visit my 98-year-old aunt again. When leaving New York I tend to dilly-dally even more than I do at home. I knew that I would be tired after picking up my car in New Haven but figured I'd caffeinate and get through it.

On the way to the 125th Street/Harlem train station in an Uber, I looked around and realized that I had left my laptop in Jeanne's apartment. We were already at 106th Street and would have to go back to 72nd. I asked the driver if he could turn around, but, of course, it is not so simple in an Uber. I had to send him a text message with the "new" address (the address from which he had just picked me up ) and an explanatory note and then re-enter the final destination. It's all in the app, so there was no such thing as using old-fashioned words to tell him, I later realized. Also, we had a bit of a language barrier. It was cumbersome and made me wish I was in a cab.

At $32, it was a pretty expensive trip. I don't know if a cab would have been better or worse. 

Having missed my originally chosen train, I got on the next one with a few minutes to spare and promptly fell asleep. Once at the train station in New Haven, I went to Notes on my phone to check my parking space number and saw that I must have not hit SAVE: The field was blank. Another fine kettle of fish...

I told the people on the elevator what had happened, and one man said I could get off at the sixth floor and just walk down. I remembered parking pretty quickly on the first floor, so I asked the elevator people what they thought about my starting at the bottom. "You could have lucked out," a nice woman said.

So I rode up with them and then rode back down, got out, and looked around for A-1 or something like that. I clicked the door unlock on my keys. A faint beeping grew quickly louder. 

Mirabile dictu!

I found the car, got in, and arrived back home around 9 with no more mishaps.

Today I was tired but still glad I went.

Threatened, cut, zapped and stitched

Dinner

As I wrote in my Facebook rant on the way to get my Mohs surgery yesterday, the driver was one of the worst, starting with arriving half an hour late and then ignoring my directions to go the fastest way to the Pike, saying,"You're not my mother and I never listened to my mother," leading to "Don't fuck with me or I'll fucking drop you on the road," when I asked him to stop talking on the phone as he was yelling at his dispatcher that it was her fault for over scheduling which was the reason he was late.

It might seem odd to write what is happening live on Facebook but it calms me down, keeps a record, and makes me feel like I'm talking to friends, which I am (thank you very much) because I feel supported when I see the comments.

I totally lost it and put my head down on the seat and was crying so much when talking to Katie that I couldn't get the words out. Popping the Ativan that I meant to save for the surgery, plus talking to her, calmed me down. I was able to joke that the big driver in chains probably wouldn't kill me because it didn't look good.

I need to file a complaint with MART, the MassHealth transportation service, but they keep you on hold so long that I need to do it on my landline when I get home.

My expectations for the Mohs were worse than what actually happened.

I don't think they teach you this anywhere – expect the worst and then you'll be pleasantly surprised if it isn't so bad – but that is what happened.

I had worried that the squamous cell on my calf was so large that they would need to take a graft from my side like they did for the one on my ankle recently. (It was larger than a nickel but smaller than a quarter.) But it wasn't necessary.

I envisioned having to get a lot of hair cut for the one on my scalp, but they only snipped a little.

They give local anesthesia with needles into the area and cut away.

They send the sample off to see if the margins are clear, and if not, they repeat the process for multiple passes if necessary.

The margins were clear on both so I was done with that.

Little scaly spots on my skin, which I was afraid would need to be biopsied, got zapped. Base of thumb, neck, and forehead. Little blisters today.

Margaret picked me up and took me to Needham.

Nick said the bandage looked like a yarmulka.

I reminded him that the last time I was there, he said the bandage across my forehead made me look like a Revolutionary War casualty.

This is all my kind of humor and made me laugh.

He prepared a nice dinner and then we talked for a while and went to bed early for me (9-ish.) I said I should stay there more because I'm away from the distractions at home that invite me to putter around to all hours. At bedtime, the pain on the top of my head and on my calf warranted an oxycodone .

This is problematic because opiates disrupt normal sleep patterns, causing you to feel like you are never totally asleep and to even feel like you're hallucinating. Still, this half-sleep is better than lying awake in pain.

I went to sleep but woke up around 2 a.m. and went down to the kitchen and wrote an email.

Then it was back to bed and up again around 4. I listened to part of Thich Nhat Hahn's Deep Blissful Meditation, drifted back to sleep, woke up at a normal hour and asked for strong coffee.

After a while, I took The Ride to Dana-Farber for an uneventful ECP (from 1 to 4) and a normal ride home with a driver who was no problem except for a stream of consciousness about why he is such a good driver.

When the nurse called earlier rom the Mohs office to check on me, I asked if she thought it was OK for me to go to a reading. She said she didn't see why not as long as I wasn't standing too long or running around.

So in a quick turnaround, Mimi picked me up at 6:45, about 20 minutes after I got home. We went to the Florence Civic Center to hear our former colleague and gifted writer, Fred Contrada, read from his collection, The Columns of Fred Contrada. Fred was recently diagnosed with Parkinson's. The room was full. You could feel the admiration and support.

I had only had a snack or two for dinner. Herrell's beckoned; it was on the way home after all. I thought I would get my usual two scoops of something boring until the woman in front of me pointed out the brownie bowl. That looked good so I took it, figuring I would get vanilla to fill it.

It turns out it came with ice cream, hot fudge, whipped cream and a topping. I choose walnuts.

I sat down with Mimi to eat what I guess you would call dinner.

On the way home the stitches in my scalp started acting up again, so I knew I would need another oxycodone. I took that and as of this writing am wondering how the night will play out.

Tomorrow when I have the time to stay on hold for who knows how long, I will file that complaint with MART.

On way to Dana-Farber, joy of low expectations

Little bit of color: my mom's painting on left, my flowers, and Matisse print

When a friend asked how my ride was yesterday and I said that the driver was pleasant and actually looked me in the eye and said hello and asked how I was, she said, "Nothing like setting a low bar."

Indeed.

It almost turned into one of those days. I didn't get the confirmation call the night before, so yesterday I called MART, which arranges the rides, and stayed on what I thought might be an interminable hold but which was short for them – about 20 minutes. The call-taker said I had a ride for three weeks from yesterday but not for yesterday. I was sure I booked that ride. I told her the woman who booked it sounded confused, because she asked me several times. Luckily it was only 9:15 a.m. or so and the person who took my second call said she could find me a same-day ride, but I had to answer my phone or they wouldn't take me.

So I went off to tennis and kept my phone in my pocket and sure enough I got the call. It came in the middle of a point but I had already said I might have to stop, so that worked out and we picked up where we were.

The ride came on time. And the driver even called ahead to say he would be a few minutes late but that he was on his way. A minor miracle!

When we got to Boston, I asked him if he liked sports, and when he said he did, I offered to leave my New York Times sports section, and all the rest if he wanted it, while he waited for me. He thanked me and said he also had homework to do: studying for the handcuff training that is part of becoming an auxiliary police officer.

Once at the Kraft Family Blood Donor Center for the light treatment on my blood (my current shorthand for ECP) my good fortune continued. New machines make the procedure faster, only by a little, but that shorter time makes a difference. My nurse yesterday, Tina, has become a friend.

We are on the same page about the election, as was the nurse working next to us. I had introduced Tina to fivethirtyeight.com and so we talked about the trends and forecasts and the various forecasting methods that The Upshot and other sites use. (Explanations courtesy of Ben Doody.) Looking at the electoral map, we looked at the big swaths of red in the middle of the country and asked how can they.

I found some stories that I had read and sent her the links and read her some analysis of the VP debate. For her part she was still cracking up about Alec Baldwin's Donald Trump on this past Saturday Night Live's Cold Open. I went back and found Darrell Hammond's, which I said I liked better because it was a little more subtle. I also found some of the SNL primary debates, which I watched and the nurses peeked at in between doing other things.

Thus the three hours passed, with us looking at funny videos and serious stories. I don't eat much when I'm there (they have a lot but I took my time eating one bag of Cheez-its) so I took a handful of snacks and shared them with my nice driver. I dozed off a little and was home before I knew it, not annoyed at anything.

Stranded... in my own house

I couldn't complain about the person driving me to Boston for my appointment yesterday because I never saw him. I waited in my usual spot looking out the window at my driveway and checked my phone to see if I had missed a call.

I called the company, Sonic Velocity (one of the good ones) but it went straight to voicemail. I called MART, which arranges these in-state rides for patients, and got put on hold while the call taker checked. She said the driver had left because he didn't see me. I said I never saw him. She said he was waiting at the foot of the driveway. I said we've been through this before. The first time this happened more than a year ago when a driver left without me I said it's a state highway and the door is on the driveway side. I said this company has been taking me for more than a year and they know that. She said it is a curb-to-curb pickup and they don't have to call me. It is only a courtesy and if I want it I have to request it. I said I did request it. She said there was nothing she could do but put me on standby, in which case I would need to wait an hour.

What would you like me to do, she asked. I started crying. If you can label a type of cry, I guess it was a combination anger and frustration. I hung up on her. I missed my appointment. Still crying, I called the Kraft Family Blood Donor Center. Diane, who books the ECP -- or photopheresis -- appointments, was very nice. I rebooked for today. I am going to drive myself.

So, OK, it's not life or death. I can do it today. I had arranged things so I could do it yesterday as planned and then had to rearrange them. But what if someone REALLY needed to go to an appointment the same day? They would be screwed.

I'm stoic (for the most part ) about the big things, but the annoyances like this get me all worked up.

People have asked why I don't just drive myself. Because it's a lot to do in one day, and you lose a little blood in the process, and I get tired. Depending on how I feel afterwards, I'm going to either sleep at Margaret's or come home. I have things to do tonight and tomorrow so I would rather come home.

I put a half humorous post on Facebook saying what had happened and asking if anyone wants to drive me to Boston and hang around for three hours while I get my blood sunburned.

My childhood friend from Atlantic Beach, Mike Kass, was the only one who responded. A new social worker said she didn't understand why I was hesitant to ask people for rides. I said because people are busy and it takes up a whole day and they have other things to to. I think it is probably like this for anyone who has been seriously ill: You are lucky to have friends to help you in the serious stage, and you have to understand that they are less likely to do it in the maintenance stage.

I think Mike would have driven me. But it's a long way from California.

After appointments on two days, a mixed report

The good news is that I have something to be upset about that is not as serious or sad as what has been going on recently, and that I have more crazy car service stories to tell, and that I think I have finally been able to get rid of Westport Transport, the company that has been giving me so much grief.

They took me to Boston yesterday for my checkup (platelets 240, yay) followed by ECP, and were supposed to bring me home today because I made back-to-back appointments and stayed overnight at Margaret's so that I could see Dr. Lin, my dermatologist, today.

Last night when I got the call from MART, which provides rides to patients making trips throughout the state, the automated voice said, "This is MART, calling to remind me of your pickup tomorrow at 11 a.m. for your appointment at 1 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 14."

When I called the vendor (Westport Transport), to say it would not be possible for them to pick me up in South Hadley because they had already brought me to Boston, the dispatcher or owner or whoever answered said to call back tomorrow (today), they were already done for the day. When I called back this morning, he said he couldn't afford to take a one-way trip.

I said they had done it yesterday, why not today, and since they had placed a bid for me they better get me home. He said to call MART, it was their mistake. After I waited on hold for 37 minutes, the woman who finally answered the phone put me on hold while she checked with the vendor. When she came back, she said that she would find another vendor because Westfield Transport was going to double its rate. I said that my appointment was at 1 and she said to put in a 3 p.m. pickup for my trip home because that would give her plenty of time to find someone else.

Dr. Lin froze more than a dozen spots on my hands and neck and then biopsied two more suspicious looking ones on my nose and cheek. With my face stinging, I went downstairs and used the automated system to check on my ride. It said I would be picked up by my old nemesis, Westfield Transport, the one that had refused to take me, at 3.

When I called the friendly dispatcher to find out if this was true, he said MART had canceled the trip to find another vendor but had been unable to find another and so his company was being kind enough to send someone from Springfield (he had just left) so that I would not be sleeping overnight in the lobby of the doctor's office.

My new driver arrived around 4:30. From the the car, I called the owner and asked why he had made such a commotion about bringing me one way when he had done it the day before. He didn't have a very good answer for this. I took the opportunity to tell him to NEVER place a bid for me again because I will have my tank full of gas and decline the ride. He said FINE.

Some people have asked me why I don't just drive myself since it is usually a hassle. I have done that occasionally. But I usually return to my original reason: It saves me money and the wear and tear of driving and the risk of getting sleepy at the wheel.

The driver regaled me with stories about the addicts he drives to methadone treatments. He said he could write a book. Most say they want the extra high and plan to keep on using. Some say they find  ways to get medical marijuana to double the fun.

After we got off at the Ludlow exit and were driving through Mount Holyoke, I told him to look out for students.

"A thousand points if I hit one," he said. I asked, "WHAT?" He repeated it.

I went straight to get Maddie out of the Pet Hotel, where she stayed because Jim and Jane are on a cruise. It was nice to see her. When I came into the cold house around 8, the smoke alarm was beeping. It needed a battery.

So that was my day.

When complaining gets you nowhere

I might finally have to say goodbye to MART, the transportation authority that gives free rides to patients. In exchange for some good stories (another to come) and saving on gas, mileage and parking and fatigue in driving, I am not sure if it's worth it anymore, especially since I am now going every other Wednesday to get ECP, or extracorporeal photopheresis, the light treatment that has greatly improved the graft-vs-host disease that caused my skin to to thicken and harden.

If you are tired of hearing about this, you can STOP HERE.

If you want to hear about how I waited 45 minutes last night at Dana-Farber for the company to send a new driver from Springfield because the one who had taken me and who was supposed to pick me up disappeared, and how my new driver told me that he had five children with four different women and that he was a father at 14 because his then 19-year-old babysitter got pregnant after having sex with him since he was 8, and about how I called MART to complain for the third time and asked if that was enough to get a new service, and how the person said no, you have to complain several times, and how I said several is three, and how I called my efficient Turkish driver friend to see if I could get him back and how he said Westfield Transport is offering a lower bid, then you should continue.

If I get that company again I'll either drive myself and stay overnight at Margaret's or Diane's, or get a ride if someone wants to drive me and sit around or go someplace for the three hours. Actually it's fun at the Kraft Family Blood Donor Center. The nurses are nice and friendly, and there is a camaraderie among the patients (when they are not sleeping) and the people who sit with them. When I left yesterday, I was a little sad to be skipping a week. It shows how perceptions can change because when I first heard I had to do this, I was not happy about it.

Since I have the number for Westfield Transport, I might also call directly and tell the owner not to bother bidding for me because I'm not going to go if I get them again.

My driver taking me to Boston yesterday was half an hour late. Someone asked why I don't drive myself if they are late. Firstly, I think they're about to come. Secondly, my car was in the shop getting new brakes.

When he finally came, he said his boss had told him to pick someone up in Northampton at 12:30 and take that person to the doctor, and when he told his boss that he would never be able to get me at 12:45, his boss said he didn't care. He also told me that the owner wanted him to drop me off in Boston and take someone back to Palmer and then come back to get me, and that when he told the owner that he would then be late for me, the owner said too bad.

I told him he better get me at 6:45. None of the drivers who take me have the time to do another run; they hang around in Boston until I am done. There was no sign of him at the appointed time. I called and he didn't answer. I called the owner, who impatiently told me that he would look for the driver. About 7:30, a different driver called and said he was stuck in traffic on Memorial Drive. When he picked me up he said the first driver had gotten a flat tire. I don't know how he got a flat tire when he was supposed to be waiting for me.

My new driver had been in the car all day. He had started at 4 a.m. and was just beginning to call it a day when he got called to come get me. He was pleasant, albeit telling me more than I needed to know about what his babysitter did with him. He asked if we could stop at a rest stop, and I said sure, why not. At this point I needed to decide if I was going to just eat the Cheez-its I had brought from the donor center or get something to eat. I knew that by the time I got home it would be too late to make anything. I thought I would get a slice of pizza, but that place was closed, so I got a cheeseburger at McDonald's. The less said about that, the better.

When we got to my house around 9:30, my driver was upset that I hadn't left a light on. Some people might think I should have left a light on, but I said I didn't want to use electricity all day when I wasn't there. Looking at the woodsy area around my house, he said, "A bear might get you." He waited to make sure I got in OK.

A touch of kindness in a crazy day.

Still, I had a bad headache, and after doing a couple of things, I went up to bed.

When I cried two times in one day

I hadn't planned to start my every-other-week ECP schedule yesterday, but it happened that way when the driver from Westfield Transport failed to show up. Worse still, when I called to find out why the driver was late, the owner lied to me and said he would be there in 10 minutes, and when 15 minutes passed and the driver called me, he told me a sob story about how the owner had overbooked him and he was in Springfield needing to get gas and furthermore if he took me there was no way he would be able to bring me back at 6:45 p.m. because he would be in another part of the state.

I called the Kraft Family Blood Donor Center to cancel and called MART, the place that arranges these rides, to complain. They were totally out of line: The driver or owner was supposed to give MART at least 15 minutes notice if they were unable to make a pick up. I haven't complained about this in a while because my Turkish friend and his fleet, Sonic Velocity, had been doing a great job. I asked if I could get him back again, but you can't request a driver due to the bidding system that I don't quite get. I have his number and I think I will call him to see what he can do.

Now, it just so happens that I am on a maintenance procedure and it was OK for me to skip. Although I was frustrated and annoyed, I could handle it. But as I said before, this is a prescription transport system for people who need to get to doctors' appointments for vital treatments, and I am sorry for the really sick people who not only get stood up but also have to listen to a driver make excuses.

Tears of frustration briefly filled my eyes, but I got over it and went about my business.

Earlier in the morning, something else happened that brought tears to my eyes. I was having a great time at the round robin in Enfield when my opponent, a guy, hit a ball hard into my thigh. It stung so much that I had to stop and walk it off. We were almost done with that round. I didn't finish. I said, "There's no crying in tennis," but the teary thing lasted until I got on the court with another group.

He apologized and said he hadn't meant to do it. Of course he didn't, but guys should not hit the ball so hard when playing in this kind of event. Some of the other ladies at a lovely tea afterwards also brought this up, saying it is no fun to play with or against a guy who just hits to ace you and place winners.

Most of the men we play with know better. They can do other things, such as practice spin and placement. One of our regulars even asks us what speed we would like on his serve.

But to end on a better note, I just have to say, I love my tennis friends.

From not answering the phone to oversharing on the phone

What's worse than a crazy driver?

No driver at all!

What's worse than no driver?

Waiting for more than an hour, to no avail, for someone at MART to pick up so I could find out what happened and try to book a ride for today, while Hannah Kitzmiller, the resource specialist at Dana-Farber, also holds for more than hour, then realizing I better gas up and drive myself, which I do in the pouring rain, and then driving back in the dark in the rain and fog, an eight-hour day all together.

MART is worse than Comcast, and that is saying a lot. The only way you can get through is to put your phone on speaker and carry it around with you in your house for more than an hour. Maybe even two. The recorded voice tells you that you can leave a message on the website. Which does not work.

Well, we all know that it could be worse. I realize this especially as I sit in my warm house eating broccoli and ravioli, relaxing with a smidgen of Ativan. Also I think my mother sent me a sign when I was standing with wet feet, pumping gas, and looked down to see a quarter in the dirt.

I got a high-test Starbucks and made it almost all the way to Boston without getting sleepy, stopping in Framingham for a pick-me-up of peanut M&Ms.

I got there early because I thought I had a 2 p.m. appointment with Dr. Goguen (to check on my tongue), when really she had canceled and changed the appointment to January. It is hard to keep track of her. This is the second time she rebooked. I thought I was very resourceful putting a reminder in my phone for the 2 p.m. today, which I almost forgot until I got the reminder yesterday. But I had forgotten to remove it. That part worked out well because I was able to get into ECP early. Still, I wasn't done until 6. And that was with only five cycles. I'm glad I was allowed to cut it back from six cycles.

I told Ellen, the PA, that Melissa had said I could start going every other week starting in January. Ellen thought that was a good idea. We would do that for three months and then cut back some more. After that, I would space out some more. But I will never totally stop. It I did, the Graft vs. Host of the skin is likely to come back.

While I was lying there getting my blood removed, a woman who I think was a resident spoke loudly on the phone about a patient. I found this disturbing and unprofessional. She was talking about a patient who sounded a lot like I had been. Platelets as low as two, bumped up to 40 after a transfusion, responding just to HLA matched platelets, in some kind of difficulty. The woman said she had had a disagreement with Dr. Antin and realized afterwards that it was a bad idea because Dr. Antin always needs to be right although she still disagreed with him. (She was referring to Joseph Antin, chief and program director of stem cell transplantation, who was my friend Patricia's doctor.)

Rather than looking at me, she looked through me. Meanwhile, I had received a call from a friend and said I didn't want to talk too long because I was in a big open space and didn't want to disturb anyone. Signs in the elevators warn against talking about patients. And here was this employee discussing a patient out in the open.

It sounded so much like me that I told my nurse that I had been that low and had been saved by an anonymous donor when I needed platelets before they could insert an catheter in my neck to begin dialysis when I was in kidney failure.

With that story fresh in my mind, I went over to the donor side as I sometimes do, to tell the story and thank the donors. I spoke to one woman who, "It's my pleasure." The donors and the nurses seem to like seeing someone like me who would not be alive if not for their generosity, and I like to go over and thank them. I wish I knew that one particular donor who saved my life.

Just another crazy day on the road

"David: Axel."

"George: Axel."

This is my Turkish driver dictating texts into one of his phones while barreling down the Pike at 77 miles per hour. He maneuvers two phones at once and monitors his computer, where he keeps track of his 16-car fleet, including the repairs that George and David need on their cars. Customers call to complain, drivers call for assignments. A loud conversation takes place in Turkish. This man with the mane of the wavy black hair is the boss.

We hear a loud POP. A truck has gotten a flat tire. A piece of rubber flies past the windshield. We escape without harm. And somehow I get to Dana-Farber in one piece. I tell the nurses about this and ask what am I going to do. I am not going to file a complaint about him because he told me how he built this business from scratch based on two broken-down cars. I like him, he gets me there fastest, and he is very polite. I think I will call him directly on his cell phone and say that I am uncomfortable with him conducting business while driving me, and if he has to do it, please do not put in a bid with MART to drive me again.

The day started with a beautiful Indian summer clinic outside. I had just about half an hour to make my lunch and get my things together – well, just my computer and a book that I don't usually read. Marlene, my nurse from last week, who I also had today, had suggested asking Melissa if I could do five instead of six cycles because my arm starts to hurt at the fifth and it really doesn't make the much of a difference. Melissa gave the OK, but when Ellen the PA came around she said she would rather see me do six to get the most benefit. I told this to Marlene and she said there is no reason to sit in pain. I said I know that pain causes stress, which releases the hormone cortisol, which is not good for your health. I am going to stick with five.

For the past two visits, Marlene has looked from time to time at my computer while I watch my latest recommendation from Joe, the Netflix series Bloodline. There are so many flashbacks that it is difficult to keep it all straight, but Marlene and I have helped each other figure it out. I texted Joe that it was a little confusing and he said it will all become clear. He says he has never given me bad advice, and this is true, so I will have to take his word, since he recommended "Friday Night Lights," "Breaking Bad," and its antidote, "The Office."

Also, it is nice to see Kyle Chandler, who will always be Coach Taylor.