Pantries, and wi-fi, and pleasantries… oh my!

We arrived at the Memorial Sloan Kettering outpatient clinic promptly at 0900, having completed the 30 foot indoor commute from the Marriott Courtyard to the tragically-named facility. BTW, Marcie and I chuckled at the directions from the hotel staff.

Marriottian: "You see those doors past the elevators?"
Cancer-tourists: "Uh, the ones that say 'Emergency Exit Only'?"
Marriottian: "Yes, you just go through those doors, and you're in the hospital! Can I interest you in a late checkout?"
Cancer-tourists: "Maybe later. We're going to contemplate the deep meaning behind the label on those doors first"

Anyway, MSKOC (don't pronounce that phonetically, especially in front of your kids) sure does know how to treat its patients and the patient people they brought with them quite nicely. As the title of this post gives away, they do in fact have a nicely stocked pantry in the Guinness Book-worthy large waiting room and free wi-fi throughout the facility. Sweet! I was all set to catch up on Myth Busters on my Android-powered phone, when they called me back. I had barely gotten to the opening credits!

So it's a very efficiently run gigantic healthcare facility. Big deal - you see that every day, right? Here's the weird part, the people there, and I remind you this is in NYC, were all, wait for it, nice. I know! But here's the weirder part – everyone we dealt with in NYC, from the bagel shop counter people, to the 22 year old waiter at the 102 year-old Italian restaurant we went to with Marcie's brother, to the Marriottians, was nice. It's like the snowstorm last week froze all their New York DNA and they haven't thawed out yet. Not one person told me to do anything untoward to myself. Well, maybe the cabbie who didn't listen to my directions as to which bridge to take from LaGuardia to Manhattan and who was rewarded appropriately by my lack of tip, did. But if so, it wasn't in English, so that doesn't count.

Now for the part most of you want to know, did the Wizard cast any spells or otherwise change the treatment plan? Well, not really, or maybe only slightly. There's this mutation that if I have it makes some agent that they could add to my chemo potentially more effective, but it takes a couple weeks to work up the slides to find the mutation. So, we'll talk it over with Dr. Z (actually it's "Sz", but it's pronounced Z, which is my way of closing the loop on the phonetic reference I made earlier) tomorrow. But the bottom line is the Wiz is on the leading edge of all this cancer stuff, and she thinks I've received excellent care so far and that all the right decisions are being made by the Docs here in ATL.

So, we saw Cousin Stan, Brother Steve, the Wizard, and even, quite unexpectedly, one of my all-time favorite people from high school, while in NYC this time. Next time we go back, we're hoping to do better in the Wicked rush ticket lottery so we can see the "real" Wizard on stage. And maybe we'll get some good news on how I'm doing and what new potions they've cooked up in the land of pantries and wi-fi and pleasantries.