OK, hmm, well - I went to Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, FL to begin my chemo treatment yesterday. To make a long story short, it was an over 3 hour traumatic experience that began with long delays (hours) and apologies (that was not the traumatic part) and ended with several catheter attempts (never successful) and tears and pushing and prodding my cancer bladder and finally me walking out of there over 3 hours later without the chemo. I'll tell you what - I didn't want to go to Moffitt in the first place and I DEFINITELY do NOT want to go back. We did talk to a patient advocate today at Moffitt, and now my main goal with them is ensuring they don't charge me for yesterday's fiasco. They don't even have enough of the BCG to complete my 6 rounds but they are expecting to get more in by the end of the month.
I made several calls to area hospitals to find out who else has BCG and even to the manufacturer of BCG, Merck, but it's hard to figure out who does what. Merck said they can't tell me which hospitals in my area get their BCG from them because Merck just sends the drugs to wholesalers. I spoke to one hospital who has the BCG available now, but said that if I went to them, I would have to transfer all my records and would have to leave my doctor, make an appointment with one of their doctors, and then get the doctor to write orders for my chemo and then schedule it with them. Even the new patient coordinator for that hospital discouraged me from going through this lengthy process. Another hospital will work with my doctor - he would just need to change my chemo orders to them, but he (my doctor) is out of the country right now! Plus, that hospital doesn't have any BCG right now but is expecting a shipment in the next week or so.
All I know is I do NOT want to go back to Moffitt. Any suggestions of how else to find out who has BCG in my area??
Thanks so much!
Jodie