Why we are called patients...
What a frustrating day! So ridiculous. I had my appointment with an oncologist this morning at Westmead Hospital. He was a lung specialist, since the thinking was if it's cancerous, it's the same cancer. He and his sidekicks (I know they're registrars, but it's much cooler to have sidekicks) looked at my scans, asked me lots of questions about other symptoms (none) and then decided that since it was no longer in my lungs, it should go to a gynecological oncologist. Luckily, she could see me that afternoon. So, I called work to say I'm not coming in this afternoon after all and waited patiently to see the next oncologist.
She is really good, and knows her stuff, and I like her and would be very confident in her care. Unfortunately, she knows her stuff a bit too well - ie she is a gynecological oncologist and that's pretty much her entire sphere of reference so that's all she's focussed on. She seems to have all but dismissed the whole cancer in the chest thing, and is treating the tumour as if it was a fibroid growing from the uterus. And if I was a normal healthy female that would be fine - except that I do have a history of ruddy great tumours in odd places that happen to be cancerous! So I would really like her to have a little bit more of a focus on that issue and a little less on trying to fit me into a box that she understands better.
I suppose it's only natural - everyone has their little area of specialty and no one wants to treat me unless it falls into their area and if it doesn't then we can just think about it differently so it does.
Anyway, the good thing is that she's taking my desire to harvest eggs quite seriously and is booking me in to see a fertility expert straight away, before anything else happens. Unfortunately, this takes even more time, plod plod plod. She then wants to do a laparoscopy to look at it before we go in and take it out. I kind of think this is a waste of time, since I don't want to do a biopsy, but it's a simple procedure and I think looking at it will give us an idea of whether I do need to harvest eggs immediately or not and give us an idea of the urgency of the situation.
So, she will call me in the next day or so with a referral to the fertility guy, and then I'll see him to discuss what needs to be done fertility-wise.
I know to a lot of people all this mucking around with fertility seems like a waste of time, but it's very important to me.
She is really good, and knows her stuff, and I like her and would be very confident in her care. Unfortunately, she knows her stuff a bit too well - ie she is a gynecological oncologist and that's pretty much her entire sphere of reference so that's all she's focussed on. She seems to have all but dismissed the whole cancer in the chest thing, and is treating the tumour as if it was a fibroid growing from the uterus. And if I was a normal healthy female that would be fine - except that I do have a history of ruddy great tumours in odd places that happen to be cancerous! So I would really like her to have a little bit more of a focus on that issue and a little less on trying to fit me into a box that she understands better.
I suppose it's only natural - everyone has their little area of specialty and no one wants to treat me unless it falls into their area and if it doesn't then we can just think about it differently so it does.
Anyway, the good thing is that she's taking my desire to harvest eggs quite seriously and is booking me in to see a fertility expert straight away, before anything else happens. Unfortunately, this takes even more time, plod plod plod. She then wants to do a laparoscopy to look at it before we go in and take it out. I kind of think this is a waste of time, since I don't want to do a biopsy, but it's a simple procedure and I think looking at it will give us an idea of whether I do need to harvest eggs immediately or not and give us an idea of the urgency of the situation.
So, she will call me in the next day or so with a referral to the fertility guy, and then I'll see him to discuss what needs to be done fertility-wise.
I know to a lot of people all this mucking around with fertility seems like a waste of time, but it's very important to me.
posted by Jessie at 3:38 pm
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