On Monday Jett received her first immunotherapy infusion in Florida. It was performed at the Regional Cancer Center of Fort Myers, a very nice facility less than 15 minutes from our Florida home. All went well, though she felt weak for two days afterward.
The big accomplishment, from my perspective, was that all of the arrangements could be made in a short period of time so that she didn’t miss a beat on her every-three-weeks infusion schedule. I had to find a facility, make initial contact, arrange with UMASS to get her medical records sent to Florida, arrange an initial meeting with a new oncologist, get the Medicare paperwork done and then, finally, schedule the infusion. Most of the work could be – and was – done while I was still in Massachusetts. But then I had to rely on this new facility to follow through.
They did.
So there was more than a little sigh of relief when we first visited the facility and we discovered that it was much larger than we expected (indicating, in my view, that they really knew how to care for a cancer patient) and when Jett met the new oncologist and declared “I really like her!”
The actual infusion – sorry, I neglected to take a photo – occurred in a very large, open infusion room with at least 32 infusion chairs. We didn’t much like the open concept – it was a bit like getting an infusion on the floor of a convention center. But the nurses were very nice and the infusion was only 30 minutes (actually more like 90 minutes, but I think the next one will be faster) so we can tolerate the openness for 30 minutes every three weeks.
So, great relief and a renewed confidence that the forces are in place to continue the cancer battle.
UMASS Memorial Medical Center
The UMASS ACC
Her final UMASS immunotherapy infusion
Our summer in MA has consisted of (1) numerous visits with Jett’s family, (2) 4 months of hotel living at Extended Stay America (ESA) and (3) about one visit per week to the University of Massachusetts Memorial Medical Center. I have blogged previously about ESA and have mentioned her family several times – though not each and every visit – so now is a good time to talk about our experience with UMASS Memorial Medical Center.
We love it!
When we were deciding, back in May, how to deal with her new cancer diagnosis, one of the options I considered was renting an apartment close to downtown Boston so that she could be treated at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, the premier cancer treatment center in Massachusetts and one of the finest in the world. A combination of factors, including cost of housing, difficulty in family getting to her to visit and, if we didn’t live in Boston, the difficulty getting her into Boston for treatments led me to decide to seek treatment at UMASS Memorial Medical Center in Worcester. At the time I felt that I was opting for a second-best treatment facility due to its logistical superiority.
I no longer think that it is a second-best anything.
I learned, when we went to UMASS for Jett’s first meeting with her new oncologist, that UMASS was partnered with Dana Farber and provides the same level and quality of cancer treatment as Dana Farber. That was very comforting, as was the fact that her oncologist was, to quote one of the nurses, “THE lung cancer expert at UMASS” with over 30 years of experience treating difficult lung cancer cases.
The UMASS facility consists of four large buildings on a beautiful large hillside campus overlooking Lake Quinsigamond. Jett’s infusions took place in rooms with a lake view, a soothing panorama that made the somewhat traumatic experiences just a bit more pleasant. This is a teaching hospital and one of the 3 Level 1 Trauma Centers in Massachusetts, so two of the buildings are the medical school and the ER. The main building is the hospital. The fourth building – and the one where we spent 90% of our time – was the Ambulatory Care Center, for outpatient care. The top two floors of this 6-story building are almost exclusively devoted to cancer care. The parking garage is attached, so we could park and get treated without needing to go outside. Very convenient.
The staff? Consistently friendly, pleasant, upbeat, caring, considerate and efficient. We never had the kind of poor communication and misunderstanding that tainted our stay in Flagler Beach. The initial plan for chemotherapy didn’t work out well due to a pretty severe neuropathy (numbness in the fingers) side effect, so the plan immediately switched to immunotherapy. I was initially concerned about this because my amateur medical sleuthing suggested that 100% immunotherapy was not nearly as effective as a combination of chemo and immuno. But after the one chemo treatment and four immuno treatments, her tumors had all shrunk, a result which our doctor characterized as “miraculous.”
She just received her fifth immunotherapy treatment and we are now headed back to Florida – a place that, back in June, when we took the train north to Massachusetts, I doubted that Jett would ever see again. The fact that she is getting another winter in Florida is due, I believe, to the quality of care she received at UMASS. The plan is to continue the immunotherapy treatments in Florida, then return to MA next summer.
Worcester will be our summer home again next year. And it is because of UMASS that we are now able to talk about “next year.”