Rejected by the Cancer Hospital
This entry was posted on 2/25/2007 5:20 PM and is filed under Our Medical System.
At 7a.m. on November 29th we were scheduled to see the highly recommended prostate surgeon at a well known cancer hospital. The appointment was moved forward by over four weeks thanks to the assistance of a friend who knew a doctor at the hospital. We had been scheduled for January. I took advantage of having a connection but felt a little guilty knowing that those without connections had to wait in a much longer line. A line that can make a real difference when you are dealing with cancer.
When we met with the doctor, he did the finger in the butt thing like they all do and looked at the records I had brought. He knew I had heart disease but I had forgotten to mention my sleep apnea. Without giving any clear reason he said that he felt I was a better candidate for radiation treatment.
We left his office a little disappointed but confident that we were finally on the path to narrowing down the options. At the desk we made an appointment to see one of the radiologists, for two weeks later.
The radiologist was great though he also started with the finger in the butt thing. He took time to look things over and answered any questions we had, but in the end said I was not a good candidate for either of the radiation treatments. He said my prostate had grown larger than he liked and that I was retaining too much urine. He also had some concern about radiation compromising my immune system when I had issues with HLA-B27. He suggested that I should have surgery. I pointed out that it was the surgeon who had sent us to him and I asked if we could have a formal case review which is often done at teaching hospitals. He agreed.
The case review I requested occurred right before Christmas. The radiologist called me and said that the review board recommended surgery and I was to go back to the surgeon for a full explanation of the findings. The next opening on the surgeon's schedule was January 10, nine weeks since my prostate biopsy.
When the surgeon walked in he looked at the notes and then asked “why are you here?” I said that we were referred back to him and we wanted to discuss the findings of case review board, called by hospital staff, “the tumor board.”
Not only had he not attended but appearantly he hadn’t read over the findings of the case review. He glanced at them as he talked with us. I told him that it was my understanding that they recommended surgery. He then clearly restated to us that he did not recommend surgery. I asked if it was because of my heart disease. He said that it does increase the risk of using general anesthesia. How much of a risk? He said the average patient has less than a 1% risk of cardiac event during surgery. He said heart desease raises the risk to 5 to 10%. It was not clear that this was the reason that he didn't want to do it. He simply said that he was referring us back to Radiology.
We left only being clear of one thing. He simply did not want to treat me. We knew at that point that we had to go elsewhere for treatment.
