Was this doctor in the wrong?

kayandok

Hissy_Fitz said:

R34....
My dctor sent me to
R34....

My dctor sent me to have my gallbladder checked, via sonogram. Then he called me, from his cell phone because he was heading out of town for a long weekend. He didn't even bother with terms like "mass" or "cyst", or "might be cancer." He just said, "It's not your gallbladder. It looks like you have ovarian cancer. I want you to call the office and get the girls to make an appointment for you with Mark Messing. You've probably had this over a year, and unfortunately, the survival rate is less than 30 percent." Nice, huh?

Nevertheless, when I met with the gyn/oncologist, one of the first things I told him was that I wanted him to promise he would always tell me the whole truth.

Carlene

Wow!
that is truth with very little hope. Has you gyn/onc been that direct?
k

Hissy_Fitz

kayandok said:

Wow!
that is truth with very little hope. Has you gyn/onc been that direct?
k

No, quite the opposite. I
No, quite the opposite. I had to drag the statistics out of him.

Radioactive34

Hissy_Fitz said:

R34....
My dctor sent me to
R34....

My dctor sent me to have my gallbladder checked, via sonogram. Then he called me, from his cell phone because he was heading out of town for a long weekend. He didn't even bother with terms like "mass" or "cyst", or "might be cancer." He just said, "It's not your gallbladder. It looks like you have ovarian cancer. I want you to call the office and get the girls to make an appointment for you with Mark Messing. You've probably had this over a year, and unfortunately, the survival rate is less than 30 percent." Nice, huh?

Nevertheless, when I met with the gyn/oncologist, one of the first things I told him was that I wanted him to promise he would always tell me the whole truth.

Carlene

I have asked the same of my
I have asked the same of my doctors. Once we told them we took care of my mother in law during her fight with cancer, the doctors were more open. Also going into the visits with studies in hand, helped.

My mother asks also the same. My brother was on life support earlier this year. She asked the doctors not to sugar coat it. She would rather have a realistic out look, then be blindsided.

It is not defeatist but realistic to plan for all.

R34

srwruns

I shudder everytime I think
I shudder everytime I think about what oncologists have to go through. I've never been able to get my head around what they must go through day in and day out. Probably most of them could have made a lot of money and a lot less stress doing boob jobs.

srwruns

sorry trying to delete a double post.
sorry trying to delete a double post.

kayandok

srwruns said:

I shudder everytime I think
I shudder everytime I think about what oncologists have to go through. I've never been able to get my head around what they must go through day in and day out. Probably most of them could have made a lot of money and a lot less stress doing boob jobs.

You could not pay me enough
to have their job!
k

Mwee

kayandok said:

You could not pay me enough
to have their job!
k

Oncologists and Oncology nurses
It must be so difficult. I was also told I had OVCA in a very curt method, NOT by my oncologist. Oh, I thought you'd all like this one.... once I asked my Onc if I was going to die from this disease and he said that I could, but I could also be hit by a bus. I guess that counts as Onc humor.
(((HUGS))) Maria

kellyh33

Nope
I think if you are bold enough to ask the question about survival then you should be prepared for the answer.
I don't believe a doctor should give an exact time line. My Mother was told 12-18 months. The 12 month mark is quickly approaching and mom is terrified. I wish the doctor had told her nobody really knows and left it at that.

lindaprocopio

kellyh33 said:

Nope
I think if you are bold enough to ask the question about survival then you should be prepared for the answer.
I don't believe a doctor should give an exact time line. My Mother was told 12-18 months. The 12 month mark is quickly approaching and mom is terrified. I wish the doctor had told her nobody really knows and left it at that.

I can see my oncologist's discomfort when I press him for stuff.
Honestly, I thought the idea of the oncologist "protecting you from the rain" was a lovely analogy. The plain truth is that death will eventually take 100% of us, cancer or no cancer, and so think of someone sheltering you for a time from the inevitable,....I wouldn't have been offended by that. It wasn't what the oncologist said. It was the facing of the truth, the universal-for-all-living-things TRUTH, that so many people adamantly turn their face from and cannot accept.

I've seen how unhappy it makes my oncologist when I ask the hard questions. He's an optimist that wants to instill hope. When I recurred the first time I read the statistics and laid them out there for his opinion for me. He said "Is there any good reason to make guesses on this?" ; and I reminded him that I had 12 employees and dozens of contractural obligations and that I needed a time frame to deal with my responsibilities. He just replied "Then start getting your affairs in order." And I have done that, happy that I've had almost 2 years now since that date and that I'm getting things tidied up in a very satisfying way. 2 HAPPY years! The KNOWING doesn't bother me; I've made my peace with the 'KNOWING". I live each day full out, to the best of my ability.

My oncologist has said other things to me, along with the straight talk, that he didn't need to. He told me he gains a lot of strength from me, and that it has been his privledge to care for me. That's because I've always gone out of my way to let him know that, although he didn't CURE me, I appreciate the skill it took to keep me symptom-free and enjoying this quality of life with my continuously advancing cancer. I agree. There's not enough money in the world for me to ever want to be an oncologist.

poopergirl14052

lindaprocopio said:

I can see my oncologist's discomfort when I press him for stuff.
Honestly, I thought the idea of the oncologist "protecting you from the rain" was a lovely analogy. The plain truth is that death will eventually take 100% of us, cancer or no cancer, and so think of someone sheltering you for a time from the inevitable,....I wouldn't have been offended by that. It wasn't what the oncologist said. It was the facing of the truth, the universal-for-all-living-things TRUTH, that so many people adamantly turn their face from and cannot accept.

I've seen how unhappy it makes my oncologist when I ask the hard questions. He's an optimist that wants to instill hope. When I recurred the first time I read the statistics and laid them out there for his opinion for me. He said "Is there any good reason to make guesses on this?" ; and I reminded him that I had 12 employees and dozens of contractural obligations and that I needed a time frame to deal with my responsibilities. He just replied "Then start getting your affairs in order." And I have done that, happy that I've had almost 2 years now since that date and that I'm getting things tidied up in a very satisfying way. 2 HAPPY years! The KNOWING doesn't bother me; I've made my peace with the 'KNOWING". I live each day full out, to the best of my ability.

My oncologist has said other things to me, along with the straight talk, that he didn't need to. He told me he gains a lot of strength from me, and that it has been his privledge to care for me. That's because I've always gone out of my way to let him know that, although he didn't CURE me, I appreciate the skill it took to keep me symptom-free and enjoying this quality of life with my continuously advancing cancer. I agree. There's not enough money in the world for me to ever want to be an oncologist.

everyone should know the truth
even if it is not what you want to hear. Some people can't handle the truth. Me personally I would like to know. I never asked my Doctor about my survival and when the time comes I will. I think all of us know when to ask...val

poopergirl14052

lindaprocopio said:

I can see my oncologist's discomfort when I press him for stuff.
Honestly, I thought the idea of the oncologist "protecting you from the rain" was a lovely analogy. The plain truth is that death will eventually take 100% of us, cancer or no cancer, and so think of someone sheltering you for a time from the inevitable,....I wouldn't have been offended by that. It wasn't what the oncologist said. It was the facing of the truth, the universal-for-all-living-things TRUTH, that so many people adamantly turn their face from and cannot accept.

I've seen how unhappy it makes my oncologist when I ask the hard questions. He's an optimist that wants to instill hope. When I recurred the first time I read the statistics and laid them out there for his opinion for me. He said "Is there any good reason to make guesses on this?" ; and I reminded him that I had 12 employees and dozens of contractural obligations and that I needed a time frame to deal with my responsibilities. He just replied "Then start getting your affairs in order." And I have done that, happy that I've had almost 2 years now since that date and that I'm getting things tidied up in a very satisfying way. 2 HAPPY years! The KNOWING doesn't bother me; I've made my peace with the 'KNOWING". I live each day full out, to the best of my ability.

My oncologist has said other things to me, along with the straight talk, that he didn't need to. He told me he gains a lot of strength from me, and that it has been his privledge to care for me. That's because I've always gone out of my way to let him know that, although he didn't CURE me, I appreciate the skill it took to keep me symptom-free and enjoying this quality of life with my continuously advancing cancer. I agree. There's not enough money in the world for me to ever want to be an oncologist.

everyone should know the truth
even if it is not what you want to hear. Some people can't handle the truth. Me personally I would like to know. I never asked my Doctor about my survival and when the time comes I will. I think all of us know when to ask...val

upsofloating

Another 2 cents POV... One
Another 2 cents POV...
One notable point regarding this issue is that the question was not posed to her treating oncologist but to her internist. Also, what might not have been relayed from the conversation she had is that the internist may have qualified her response with something along the lines of 'although that is not my specialty,' or 'not my area of expertise,' or 'based on my experience of what I have seen,' etc. etc. Her take-away was perhaps just an extrapolation of the entire conversation and she relayed only that part. Being the wife of an oncologist does not automatically come with equal knowledge, experience, or insights. Out of several hundred patients she may treat, any number could have any number of cancer issues and she most certainly cannot speak as an expert on all. My other treating doctors always defer anything related to my cancer to my oncology specialists. They also have a rather doom and gloom perception of life expectancy, suggesting counselling to deal with these 'heavy issues,' so I would never pose such a question to them. If this person really wanted an answer, she should have asked the cancer treating doctor. She chose an indirect approach, hmmm, hoping for an indirect answer?? I thought the analogy was quite good, and, in reality, does not give any time frame for that potential tsunami to come her way.
Annie