Hi to all you wonderful people out there. Well, as the heading suggests, it looks like the beast is about to strke me once more. I give you the story of how it happended;
Found a very small lump on the side of my neck where the original cancerous tumour had shown itself, but decided to say nothing until the next day. I told my wingless angel Mick because he is ALWAYS my first priority, then I phoned the cancer care nurses at Bart's, and my appt scheduled for 14th November was brought forward to last Friday 7th. I turned up and was called in by a doctor I had never seen before - nothing new there, as I've lost count of the various doctors who have examined me, told results of scan, and even a lovely pesky little fellah, forgotten his name, who told me in the middle of a chemotherapy session that my prognosis was I had 6 to 12 months to live! I call that downright cruel! I hope he picked up a bedside manner - sadlly lacking in a lot of doctors today.
Anyway, back to the unknown Dr who turned out to be called Dr Chan who gave me a thorough examination while my poor Mick sat in the other room looking absolutely petrified. Her conclusion was that it could be the cancer returning, so what she was going to do was book me in for a CT scan for two weeks' time when I should come back to the clinic for the results to be discussed with me. Ok, fine. We go over to the receptionist to give her the slip so she can give me the appointment, when Dr Chan appeared again and said she had just spoken with Dr Wells - the head honcho - so, she would like us to go back into her office. In her office once more, she proceeded to tell us that Dr Wells had decided that the scan should wait for 4 weeks! By this time there were bells going off in my head, and the words; I don't understand, kept hammering on my head. Coming out of that office I felt as though someone had physically attacked me and punched me in the head, the rest of my body seemed to scream out in defence.
I met Annie the cancer care nurse outside of the office who asked me if I was happy with what the doctor had told me!! In the middle of trying to tell Annie exactly how I felft, I found myself dissolve in floods of tears. She toook us to another office and I told her this; "I have repeatedly been told how they can prolong my life and enrich the quality of that life, but what they are doing now is downright cruel. First off, they want to send Mick and I away for TWO weeks where I can sit and worry myself sick as to whether this very aggressive cancer I have has now returned, now you want to prolong that agony by waiting us wait FOUR weeks! As far as I'm concerned, that's not just cruel, it's inhuman! You're not enriching peoples' lives, you are filling it with fear and causing them unneccessary stress. I'm shunted from one place to another, from one doctor to another, never being able to build any kind of rapport with these unknown faces, you change appointments with a wave of a pen, never evert thinking what effect all of this is having on US - the very people you claim you are helping to enjoy a longer life"
Annie got Dr Wells, head honcho to come and see me. She walked in, sat down and took my hand - then told me why she had made her decsions. The thing I had found at the side of my neck was tiny - maybe the size of a small pea. The chance of there being any cancerous cells anwhere else in my body at the moment were negliglible. She told me how my body had been struggling to recover and had been running into difficulties towards the end of my chemotherapy in August. She told me that even if a scan did show the lump in my neck as being the cancer returned, she could not give me chemotherapy at this time - if she did, it would probably kill me. She did not want to give me radiotherapy to the side of the neck as it could cause damage to the nerves and other organs, So, she wanted to wait to see if the lump changed in size (I can keep an eye on it), and if I felt it had got significantly bigger, then of course she would have me straight away. If I had any other symptoms, loss of appetitie, dramatic weight loss, shortage of breath etc, etc, then again I was to contact the hospital straight away. I came away feeling much happier (well you know what I mean), and felt reassured that I was once again in safe hands.
So, stick to your guns - don't come home from hospital to sit and worry yourself sick with questions you should have asked while you had the chance. We all have to stand our ground, and fight for everything we want, or they will walk over us all willy nilly. There are lots of people out there who have to deal with having this disease on their own, if you are one of those then ask if one of the cancer carre nurses can be with you when you have a consultation and they can speak up and ask questions on your behalf. Sorry this has been so long, but hope it may help someone (it certainly helped me get it off my chest LOL). Hope you all have someone who loves you, hold on tight with lotsa love kate xxxxxx
FormerMember
God Kate, now could they have just communicated that in the first place! Did you tell him about the fellah who said you had months to live? I mean that's totally not OK for them to blurt out to you? Anyway, well done, well done, sorry you had to go through all of that to get there, but so proud and admiring that you did! Best, Lori
