My mother had surgery this week for her breast cancer after the doctor made a negligent treatment plan recommendation and I called him to the carpet for it, which was necessary to keep my dad from going mad and decking the oncologist for ignoring us and treating mum like a number in the worst way. I could see it going downhill fast. What a mess.
He was recommending chemotherapy when she is early stage and has an extremely weak immune system already. She gets sick every year at least 5 times and once always heads into pneumonic territory which is notorious for killing chemotherapy patients. He never gave her other options or asked her what she wanted to do, just scheduled the port be put in and ignored her fear and the concerns we voiced. She's not ever been good at standing up to authority figures like doctors and asked us to be there with her for her last appointment before treatment began. Dad and I helped her research and the day of the port placement she was trying to get the nerve up to take charge and to tell him she wanted to hear her other options and wasn't doing Chemotherapy.
When he blew off my dad and my questions and worries about her weak immune system and the side effects of chemo that would destroy her physically ans mentally, given her preexisting conditions and her frailty, I saw dad almost go nuclear on the twit-- so I stepped in and quickly asked the oncologist what the survival percentage difference between her stage doing chemo vs surgery and radiation. He didn't know her stage or the numbers whatsoever. He was recommending a plan with no basis for his recommendation whatsoever and after weeks of biopsies and a difficult diagnosis he did not pay any attention to her indivisually whatsoever. When he didn't have the answers, i jumped his case and mentioned Negligent recommendations, as I'm very familiar with medical malpractice, having worked with them for years. He was silent while I embarrassed him save to answer he didn't know but would find out. I demanded immediate answers.
So when I made him look it up in MD Anderson Statistics and run the algorithms to determine her stage and survival percentages, the evidence for negligence became so concrete he panicked. We watched as he ran the algorithms over and over. This oncologist kept saying these numbers can't be right. This isn't right.
I asked him if the numbers matched mine, and after some time he admitted they did, not realizing dad and I were reading the computer screen from behind him as he sat with his back to us.
Her stage/grade has a 90% 10 year survival rate with chemotherapy and 89% survival without. He refused to give other options and pushed a treatment with only 1% difference in survival and it could easily kill her in the process. He mumbled that if this was accurate then no he wouldn't recommend chemotherapy.
Then she spoke up and told him she wanted her other options he offered the surgery and radiation, she said that's what she wanted. He was out the door as fast as possible saying he would see her in six weeks. I was afraid dad would go after him. I've never seen that look of murderous rage from him before.
Anyway on to the good part. I stumbled upon a certain lifetime achievement holy grail piece, two identical ones for less than the retail of my City Steamer. When showed them to her she lit on them like a duck on a June bug! Mum told me she wanted one and I "deserved" one... and my dad agreed we needed them to celebrate beating the doctors, having her family advocating for her treatment as not just another number and payout for those buzzard MDs, and getting the surgery done (this week) and most importantly celebrate once she got "that cancer OUT of her!"
She added rightly that retail therapy and a post surgery treat were excellent medicine! [emoji41][emoji23][emoji38] so with that said and my apologies for the length...
Let the reveal begin!! If I still remember how to do a strip tease. I haven't done this in years!
He was recommending chemotherapy when she is early stage and has an extremely weak immune system already. She gets sick every year at least 5 times and once always heads into pneumonic territory which is notorious for killing chemotherapy patients. He never gave her other options or asked her what she wanted to do, just scheduled the port be put in and ignored her fear and the concerns we voiced. She's not ever been good at standing up to authority figures like doctors and asked us to be there with her for her last appointment before treatment began. Dad and I helped her research and the day of the port placement she was trying to get the nerve up to take charge and to tell him she wanted to hear her other options and wasn't doing Chemotherapy.
When he blew off my dad and my questions and worries about her weak immune system and the side effects of chemo that would destroy her physically ans mentally, given her preexisting conditions and her frailty, I saw dad almost go nuclear on the twit-- so I stepped in and quickly asked the oncologist what the survival percentage difference between her stage doing chemo vs surgery and radiation. He didn't know her stage or the numbers whatsoever. He was recommending a plan with no basis for his recommendation whatsoever and after weeks of biopsies and a difficult diagnosis he did not pay any attention to her indivisually whatsoever. When he didn't have the answers, i jumped his case and mentioned Negligent recommendations, as I'm very familiar with medical malpractice, having worked with them for years. He was silent while I embarrassed him save to answer he didn't know but would find out. I demanded immediate answers.
So when I made him look it up in MD Anderson Statistics and run the algorithms to determine her stage and survival percentages, the evidence for negligence became so concrete he panicked. We watched as he ran the algorithms over and over. This oncologist kept saying these numbers can't be right. This isn't right.
I asked him if the numbers matched mine, and after some time he admitted they did, not realizing dad and I were reading the computer screen from behind him as he sat with his back to us.
Her stage/grade has a 90% 10 year survival rate with chemotherapy and 89% survival without. He refused to give other options and pushed a treatment with only 1% difference in survival and it could easily kill her in the process. He mumbled that if this was accurate then no he wouldn't recommend chemotherapy.
Then she spoke up and told him she wanted her other options he offered the surgery and radiation, she said that's what she wanted. He was out the door as fast as possible saying he would see her in six weeks. I was afraid dad would go after him. I've never seen that look of murderous rage from him before.
Anyway on to the good part. I stumbled upon a certain lifetime achievement holy grail piece, two identical ones for less than the retail of my City Steamer. When showed them to her she lit on them like a duck on a June bug! Mum told me she wanted one and I "deserved" one... and my dad agreed we needed them to celebrate beating the doctors, having her family advocating for her treatment as not just another number and payout for those buzzard MDs, and getting the surgery done (this week) and most importantly celebrate once she got "that cancer OUT of her!"
She added rightly that retail therapy and a post surgery treat were excellent medicine! [emoji41][emoji23][emoji38] so with that said and my apologies for the length...
Let the reveal begin!! If I still remember how to do a strip tease. I haven't done this in years!
