Hello all, I've been rather quite since my mother's initial diagnosis this time last year. The year has literally been a living hell which I won't go into too much detail about.
In Jan she was given the all clear, last scan showed no signs of the disease and we we're told by her named oncologist that she'd receive a scan in three months and we were given a follow-up appointment with her for May. She had an appointment with her surgical oncologist who carried out a physical exam and said everything 'looked' good. I emailed this week as I was concerned we hadn't received an appoint for her scan and was told her follow-ups were shared between clinical and surgical oncology and that she wouldn't have a scan unless she had symptoms. I was shocked and said that's not what we were told and she didn't display symptoms until she was stage 4.
Is this normal? Should she be having scans every 3 months? What do you do if yiu don't have symptoms? Are they thinking she's lucky it there were no signs of disease and its likely to return so what's the point in scanning?
This is stressing me out big time. Any comments/suggestions welcome.
Hi Joy80
It is so helpful when we are given apparently conflicting information - not that the whole process is not difficult enough to start with.
This page on the main site seems to suggest follow up care is the norm, certainly been the case for my wife.
From what you say it seems you have already been talking to the oncology team, my next step would be to check if the hospital has a patient advice and liason service and give them a call - they can often help unblock communications.
Hope that helps
<<hugs>>
Steve
