As many of you know, I have been dealing with multiple myeloma for almost a decade now. One thing I've learned over the years is that receiving medical care as an outpatient can be really time consuming! Fortunately, I've also learned a bit about how to save time at my cancer center, and I thought I'd share some of my learnings.

When I first started to go for appoint­ments, blood draws, or treat­ment at my local cancer center, I was on a steep learning curve. I did not know my way around at all. A friendly volunteer, who was also our next door neighbor and a cancer patient himself, gave my husband and me a tour through the complex, which is attached to the largest hospital in southern Alberta.

Since then, I can say that I have been in many departments of the cancer center, including the outpatient and inpatient bone marrow trans­plant units, the infusion center, the radiation center, and of course the appoint­ment rooms and the lab.

There is also a pharmacy at the cancer center from which I pick up my prescriptions for my treat­ments, both for my multiple myeloma and for my breast cancer.

In order to man­age my time most efficiently, I try to time the pickup of my prescriptions at the cancer center pharmacy so they coincide with days when I get my regular blood draws or have appoint­ments at the center.

The breast cancer medicine anastrozole, which I’m cur­rently taking, is given in a three-month supply. I can phone into the pharmacy and arrange to pick it up when I am at the cancer center.

Revlimid (lena­lido­mide), which I have been taking off and on over the past years, is dispensed by the hospital pharmacy also, but can also be delivered to a local pharmacy for pick up. In ad­vance of getting the Revlimid, I have blood draws done which are assessed by my doctor to ensure my blood counts are high enough to con­tinue the treat­ment.

Probably most long-time patients will have a 'standing order' at their cancer center lab to expedite blood draws. I need to get five vials at each draw, and my requisition is on the computer at the lab. I think that this only works at the lab I go to at the cancer center, which is fine with me since that is a convenient location for me to go to. Some of the myeloma-related tests, such as the serum protein electrophoresis (SPEP) and immuno­fix­a­tion electrophoresis (IFE), are not listed at regular city laboratories, where you can make appoint­ments online for various other tests.

At the cancer center lab, they have a system in place where patients take a number and wait to be served. I have found that mid-day or late afternoon are the quietest times to go there. I try to get my labs done a few days ahead of my appoint­ment with my myeloma specialist so that I have the results avail­able at my appoint­ment. We do not have a system here where patients can access their results online. I need to call to get the results from an on­col­ogy nurse if I do not have a doctor’s appoint­ment that month.

Since there are forms to fill out before every appoint­ment, I find it is a good idea to arrive about 15 minutes early.

Parking can be a problem too. If one is mobile, walking in from a nearby location, or taking public transit, may help to solve the headaches of finding a parking spot. Because both my husband and I like to walk and get some exercise, when the weather is fine, we park in a nearby park, walk on a footbridge across a river, and climb up on a foot path to the hospital. That is about 2 miles (3.2 km) round trip, and we get a scenic walk before our appoint­ments. It is calming to be outdoors in nature, and the views are great across the Bow River valley.

If I arrive early, I may get into an appoint­ment early too, due to scheduling being an inexact science. If I have to wait over my appoint­ment time, I can reflect on the fact that some patients need extra time too. I take my knitting or a book to read to stay calm in the waiting room before an appoint­ment. I could also watch a news feed on a TV there, but sometimes the news is not very calming! My husband Dilip usually joins me for my appoint­ments with the oncologist, but may arrive separately.

Occasionally my husband and I will overlap and both have medical appoint­ments or blood draws on the same day, so we try to group those together so that we are not duplicating trips.

So at the beginning of each month, I look at my day timer and see what medical appoint­ments or tests need to be attended to. I really try to group these items so that we are not making unnecessary trips to the various places that have become quite familiar to us over the last nine years.

One nice aspect to attending to all of these medical matters is that we invariably encounter concerned staff members who are very positive and helpful to us both. My husband is not a cancer patient, but he and I are both older now, so he has health concerns of his own.

Any time saved from the world of tests and treat­ments is time we can use for other work, play, and being with our family!

Do you have any pointers as to how to man­age your time, as a patient or caregiver, so that you have more free time for yourself?

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The quotation for this month is from Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902-1994), an American Orthodox rabbi born in the Russian Empire, who said: "This is the key to time man­agement - to see the value of every moment."