As 'regular listeners' will know, I managed to get myself transferred from my original hospital to the Royal Marsden. The reasons for leaving the old place were (1) a misdiagnosis of Stage 2 when on the same page of the file 'mets' to distant lymph nodes had been noted. (2) Lack of apology for this mistake on behalf of the head consultant who eventually delivered the news. (3) After them not being able to find the last scan I had with them, they had another look, and came back just as we'd decided to go home to inform me that I had just 3-4 months left to live. (4) When I dropped a card off to say that I had managed a year (not having had any contact from them in between), I received a letter mentioning that oh by the way a small percentage of my sort DID last a bit longer.
It was a bit of a hurdles course to transfer, but the Marsden accepted me, Professor Gore apologised to me on behalf of the old hospital, they gave me a CT scan and I went back on 26th August 2008 to hear the results. In fact they had kindly printed me off a duplicate of their own report, but pointed out that they had not been able to make any comparisons as, despite having requested this weeks beforehand (I was first seen by the Marsden on 18th July) they had not received my old scans on disc. When I got back from the Marsden, I rang my old hospital and was assured that the woman speaking to me would "see to it now" (28th August).
As I have to buy another advance train ticket this week to attend for this extra appointment to discover what this difference between old and new scans is, I thought I had just better check whether the Marsden have now received the old scans. Guess what....
I have just rung my old hospital - which I am getting very very close to naming and shaming, together with the old consultant - and the secretary's line is on answerphone. I shall try again later. I shall also try to be calm and not feel that the old hospital are doing this on purpose to get back at me for having shown their faults up to a major London hospital, or that, as my partner predicted, they have lost my files.
Think we need a few icons on this site - I could definitely add the "Hitting Head Against Brickwall" one. As it is, I just have to describe all dealing with the old department as "like nailing jelly to the ceiling".
All the best xxxx Penny
