Is anyone from the Dallas/Ft Worth area?

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Hissy_Fitz
Hissy_Fitz Member Posts: 1,834
edited March 2014 in Ovarian Cancer #1
The oncologist I have been referred to - actually he is an OB Gyn Oncologist - is named Mark Messing. He is with a big oncology practice called Texas Oncology. I was just wondering if anyone has heard of Dr Messing, what kind of rep does he have, etc?

I'm sure he's a good doctor, and I may be totally jumping the gun here, but I am thinking I want an oncologist who believes in very agressive treatment. I want cutting edge, hit it with everything we've got medicine.

I am close to Baylor Hospital in Dallas, which might be a better option.

Do you ladies recommend getting a second opinion right off the bat? And where do you find the names of doctors who might be the best "fit" for you?

I feel like such a novice, which of course I am. But worse than that, I feel helpless - betrayed by my own body.

Comments

  • BonnieR
    BonnieR Member Posts: 1,526 Member
    #2
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    Welcome
    Hi Ms hissy_fitz, Love your nickname. I am not from dallas and actually way up north from the state of MN but wanted to welcome you. I am sure you well hear from others that are from texas. All I know is you want to have a gyn/onc do your surgery and then after the surgery some see regular oncologist. It differs for each of us. Hugs ♥ Prayers Bonnie
  • monsta927
    monsta927 Member Posts: 20
    #3
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    Baylor
    Hi,

    I am actually in Baylor right now following my surgery on Thursday. I am from the Van/Lindale area, but have only been here 6 years so we were totally lost!
    A family friend of ours who is a top surgeon in Oregon said that MD Anderson is the best of the best and that Baylor is part of that.
    My Dr. is Carolyn Mattthews and she is wonderful. There are several Gyn Oncologists in her office and they all seem great.
    We are new to all of this as well and walking in blind, but they walk you through it!
    Best of luck to you.

    We'll be praying for you,
    Michelle
  • Hissy_Fitz
    Hissy_Fitz Member Posts: 1,834
    #4
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    monsta927 said:

    Baylor
    Hi,

    I am actually in Baylor right now following my surgery on Thursday. I am from the Van/Lindale area, but have only been here 6 years so we were totally lost!
    A family friend of ours who is a top surgeon in Oregon said that MD Anderson is the best of the best and that Baylor is part of that.
    My Dr. is Carolyn Mattthews and she is wonderful. There are several Gyn Oncologists in her office and they all seem great.
    We are new to all of this as well and walking in blind, but they walk you through it!
    Best of luck to you.

    We'll be praying for you,
    Michelle

    I didn't know that.....
    MD Anderson is part of the University of Texas but I thought Baylor College of Medicine and Baylor Medical Center were entirely separate from MD Anderson. My first thought was to seek treatment at MD Anderson but since Baylor is much closer to my home, I may look into going there, instead. The Gyno/Oncologist I am seeing on Monday trained at MD Anderson.

    My (late) husband was from Mineola, so I know where Lindale and Van are. My kids always made us drive thru Lindale on the way to their grandmother's, so we could stop at the candy store.

    Do you mind if I ask a little bit about your story? How you came to be diganosed and what stage your cancer is? Did you have symptoms? I am terrified, of course, that when mine is staged, it will be really bad. My ultrasound showed a tumor in my abdomen.

    Carlene
  • saundra
    saundra Member Posts: 1,370 Member
    #5
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    I go there
    I go to Texas Oncology and chose it over M.D. Anderson because the head of the gyn/onc., Dr. Allen Stringer, was at M.D. Anderson 13 years before going to Dallas. I have the utmost confidence in the Texas Oncology group. I had my surgery at Baylor and Dr. Stringer comes to Midland every other month for my check ups. I have my chemo here in Midland. I could have gone anywhere when first diagnosed but the treatment is pretty well same everywhere. The important thing was get the surgery in a large teaching hospital, and have a gyn/onc. do it, both were met by Texas Oncology. I have seen Dr. Matthews as she is an expert on replenishing the gut with healthy bacteria after diverticulitis. I have also seen Dr. Koon when Dr. Stringer was not available. Having my chemo in my home town has been easier than traveling to Houston. I have had friends with breast cancer that chose Houston and did have some problems with the two area communicating. Since you have numerous contacts and the treatment is not easy, I am glad that I made my choice. After reading post here you will find that we are all treated similar and it is pretty much standard. The differences are the differences in the tumors and how each body reacts to the chemicals. I think pretty much all of the American doctors are agressive as they can be. Blue Rose is in Canada and has had some problems. Hope this helps, Saundra
  • monsta927
    monsta927 Member Posts: 20
    #6
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    Hissy_Fitz said:

    I didn't know that.....
    MD Anderson is part of the University of Texas but I thought Baylor College of Medicine and Baylor Medical Center were entirely separate from MD Anderson. My first thought was to seek treatment at MD Anderson but since Baylor is much closer to my home, I may look into going there, instead. The Gyno/Oncologist I am seeing on Monday trained at MD Anderson.

    My (late) husband was from Mineola, so I know where Lindale and Van are. My kids always made us drive thru Lindale on the way to their grandmother's, so we could stop at the candy store.

    Do you mind if I ask a little bit about your story? How you came to be diganosed and what stage your cancer is? Did you have symptoms? I am terrified, of course, that when mine is staged, it will be really bad. My ultrasound showed a tumor in my abdomen.

    Carlene

    Hi
    Hi Carlene,

    I have realized this last week with the knowledge of hindsight that I have had symptoms that were easy to ignore.
    They started as far back as May, when I could not hold my stomach in. I know that sounds weird, but for me that was an odd thing.
    I started to notice the lump in my abdomen shortly thereafter.
    Sometimes at night I would wake up nauseated, I am not a person who gets nauseous easy, so that should have been a big warning sign.
    I have never been regular but I became even more irregular and even moving something small was like a major work out. I always felt like I needed to pee, always on the verge of an UTI and I could tell that my uterus was larger than normal and hard.
    My periods were so heavy and full of clots. My back ached to the point where somedays I had a hard time getting around.
    I was really busy during that time with my daughter's wedding, my other daughter was having a difficult pregnancy, my dad had been diagnosed with liver cancer and then died because of it. So needless to say I kept putting off the DR, because it was so easy to pass everything off as stress related or my body changing.
    That is the biggest problem with this, the signs mimic so many other common ailments they are easy to ignore.
    I went to our family Dr on the 9th, she sent me for an ultrasound, they did transvaginal, upper abdomen, lower abdomen and sides. My family Dr called me that night at 8:45 and said that I had a 12 cm diameter mass and that my uterus was shoved all the way over to the left and was enlarged from 62 (norm) to a 93. She needed to refer me but because there are no Gyn Oncologists in Tyler that we would have to go to Dallas. Since our family friend recommended MD Anderson/Baylor we told her to refer us here.
    So here I am, and the care has been great.
    I am still waiting for the final outcome, at this point I am more than pleased with what I know so far.
    I was supposed to have a hysterectomy and removal of the mass and leave the healthy ovary if all went well, but they ended up taking everything out, I am 'borderline, not completely benign but not malignant either', we will know more when the pathologists report comes back in a week or so.
    The waiting is the worst.
    I hope and pray the very best possible outcome for you!
    XOX-Michelle
  • saundra
    saundra Member Posts: 1,370 Member
    #7
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    Hissy_Fitz said:

    I didn't know that.....
    MD Anderson is part of the University of Texas but I thought Baylor College of Medicine and Baylor Medical Center were entirely separate from MD Anderson. My first thought was to seek treatment at MD Anderson but since Baylor is much closer to my home, I may look into going there, instead. The Gyno/Oncologist I am seeing on Monday trained at MD Anderson.

    My (late) husband was from Mineola, so I know where Lindale and Van are. My kids always made us drive thru Lindale on the way to their grandmother's, so we could stop at the candy store.

    Do you mind if I ask a little bit about your story? How you came to be diganosed and what stage your cancer is? Did you have symptoms? I am terrified, of course, that when mine is staged, it will be really bad. My ultrasound showed a tumor in my abdomen.

    Carlene

    Separate
    Southwest Med. School in Dallas is the UT facility. Baylor is separate. Two different schools, two different hospital complexes. Sammons Cancer Center, where Texas Oncology is adjacent to Baylor. Saundra
  • Hissy_Fitz
    Hissy_Fitz Member Posts: 1,834
    #8
    Options
    saundra said:

    I go there
    I go to Texas Oncology and chose it over M.D. Anderson because the head of the gyn/onc., Dr. Allen Stringer, was at M.D. Anderson 13 years before going to Dallas. I have the utmost confidence in the Texas Oncology group. I had my surgery at Baylor and Dr. Stringer comes to Midland every other month for my check ups. I have my chemo here in Midland. I could have gone anywhere when first diagnosed but the treatment is pretty well same everywhere. The important thing was get the surgery in a large teaching hospital, and have a gyn/onc. do it, both were met by Texas Oncology. I have seen Dr. Matthews as she is an expert on replenishing the gut with healthy bacteria after diverticulitis. I have also seen Dr. Koon when Dr. Stringer was not available. Having my chemo in my home town has been easier than traveling to Houston. I have had friends with breast cancer that chose Houston and did have some problems with the two area communicating. Since you have numerous contacts and the treatment is not easy, I am glad that I made my choice. After reading post here you will find that we are all treated similar and it is pretty much standard. The differences are the differences in the tumors and how each body reacts to the chemicals. I think pretty much all of the American doctors are agressive as they can be. Blue Rose is in Canada and has had some problems. Hope this helps, Saundra

    Texas Oncology
    The oncologist I am seeing has offices in Ft Worth and Bedford. Texas Oncology, I think, is a huge conglomeration of doctors, many using different facilities for surgery, chemo, etc.

    Is the actual hospital where I have the surgery as important as the doctor who performs it?

    Thanks for being so patient with all my dumb questions, guys.
  • saundra
    saundra Member Posts: 1,370 Member
    #9
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    Hissy_Fitz said:

    Texas Oncology
    The oncologist I am seeing has offices in Ft Worth and Bedford. Texas Oncology, I think, is a huge conglomeration of doctors, many using different facilities for surgery, chemo, etc.

    Is the actual hospital where I have the surgery as important as the doctor who performs it?

    Thanks for being so patient with all my dumb questions, guys.

    Texas Oncology
    They have centers all over the state. I had to go to Dallas for my surgery because of the radio frequency ablation and Dr. Stringer operates there. Our cancer center here in Midland is Texas Oncology owned and the Dallas gyn/onc come out here to see patients. Only my surgery was at Dallas Baylor. I thought all of the gyn/onc surgery was done there. You will see the doctors where you live first and probably have more tests. Do you know if they have done a CA125 blood marker test? Saundra
  • Hissy_Fitz
    Hissy_Fitz Member Posts: 1,834
    #10
    Options
    saundra said:

    Texas Oncology
    They have centers all over the state. I had to go to Dallas for my surgery because of the radio frequency ablation and Dr. Stringer operates there. Our cancer center here in Midland is Texas Oncology owned and the Dallas gyn/onc come out here to see patients. Only my surgery was at Dallas Baylor. I thought all of the gyn/onc surgery was done there. You will see the doctors where you live first and probably have more tests. Do you know if they have done a CA125 blood marker test? Saundra

    CA 125 Test
    I don't know. When I saw my PCP on Sept 14th he took a blood sample but did not tell me what it was for. In retrospect, I believe my symptoms may have alerted him to the possibility of ovarian cancer, although he did not mention it at the time. He just said he was sending me for an ultrasound and then a functionality test on my gall bladder. I was surprised when the tech finished the abdominal ultrasound and told me she was going to step out while I got undressed, then do an intravaginal ultrasound. My doctor had not mentioned it, and again, in retrospect, I thought at the time, she is spending an awfully long time pushing around on my pelvic/ovarian region. So I think there was probably a CA 125 test done and, if so, I will get the results on Monday when I see Dr. Messing.

    Dr Messing, according to the info I found on the internet, practices at Baylor Grapevine and Harris Methodist in Ft Worth. I have told my husband I want to go to Baylor Dallas for my surgery and he is not very supportive of that idea. He thinks it will mean changing doctors and Dr Messing comes highly recommended.

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