Do Doctors Know Best?

My oncologist is amongst the worst people I know. He is stuck in archaic ways and doesn’t really care what happens to his female patients. This is what mades me so angry. My cancer could have possibly been avoided if he had just done his job correctly, listened to me as well as going back to his “Medical Book Standards”.

Endometrial Adenocarinoma is a hormone based cancer. He left my hormones unchecked for two years after my hysterectomy knowing that I have a hormonal imbalance. There should have been a lot more he should have done. But didn’t because he’s a man and doesn’t have to live with the cancer anyway. He’d rather ruin someone else’s life than do the right thing.

1.) Endocrinology

One thing he should have told us was go to Endocrinology, or even referred us to one. They would have balanced out my hormones, as well as keeping an eye on my diabetes. Maybe he couldn’t get me a referral, but he could have said something about speaking to my PCP. Without guidence how was I suppose to know? Things could definitely be different if this was even done before my hysterectomy.

2.) A Full Hysterectomy

I had a partial hysterectomy. They only took my uterus, and left my ovaries in. I begged and begged them for them to take my ovaries because I knew that left alone and unchecked that they would cause further problems. I have eroded fallopian tubes from cysts (thanks Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome aka PCOS), again, a hormonal imbalance. We recently found paper work that shows that I requested to have them removed but my oncologist took a “risk” that I will have to live the rest of my life. Not him. This makes me so angry. I knew my ovaries would cause an issue. Not once during my two year remission did they check my ovaries. Not once did they do testing until they were about to put me in the survivor’s clinic. I was twenty-eight at the time and their reason behind it was because they didn’t want to put me into menopause at such a young age. However, knowing that there was a hormonal imbalance it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. When I confronted him about this, he agreed that even by the textbook he should have removed them. I was the picture perfect patient to have them removed and yet he still refused.

3.) Bedside mannerisms

My sister had put in a complaint about my oncologist for not listening to me and for not calling me back when I had called a few times during his on call week. His team even wouldn’t call me back when I had called during the business work day. Patient advocacy had called me after speaking to my sister and I gave her the run down from my perspective and knowledge. I told them that I could sue for malpractice since I had done what I could to stay cancer free. When I went and saw him during a visit right before chemo, he verbally assaulted me, as if I had been the one to put in the complaint. Then he wanted to go in circles, placing the entire thing on me. Even though he admitted that I was correct and they should have taken my ovaries. He claims that I’m the one who put up a wall between him and his team because I wasn’t communicating. How can I communicate with someone that’s won’t even answer phone calls with some serious questions. For example, we have a cancer binder that tells us some very helpful information, but it doesn’t go into detail on what to do. I had a 100.3 fever one night after chemotherapy. In the binder it says to look out for fevers entering 100.4/100.5. However it doesn’t say what to do after that. It’s blank. So we called and never heard back. It wasn’t until the next day when I had blacked out and fell, resulting a hospital trip, that I knew what to do from the ER team. I should have gotten an answer from my oncologist, not from the ER.

4.) Whiplash

So as I mentioned I had blacked out and had fallen. While we were at the ER we asked them to contact oncology to make them aware since it was literally the day after treatment. At first oncology claimed it wasn’t from chemo and that it was a different issue. However when I went for my next treatment they had come to the conclusion all of a sudden that it was from chemotherapy. Are you for real right now? Really? Because of this I’ve been walking with a cane to help steady my balance and help out my poor ankle that was the size of two softballs (its a miracle that my ankle didn’t break!). I feel like there has been a lot of whiplash between things however I cannot remember any of them other than that one (thanks Chemo-fog!).

I had an appointment with a specialist that is going to help me deal with my oncologist and his team, as a sort of in between. They had told me that the OBGYN oncology department was under fire for the way they were treating patients, not treating them correctly medically wise or as a human being. I will say, if it wasn’t for that specialist, I am a hundred percent certain that I would have gone off on my oncologist and his team for being ignorant little assholes. However, I’m half way through treatment and finding a new team would be difficult. So I’m stuck with the ignorance of men. I hate it. Especially living in a republican state, don’t get me started.