In a move that towers in the annals of the history of our marriage, my wife made the boldest move yet in her Life After Diagnosis: she changed hospitals, doctors and therapists for continued cancer treatment.
This is bravery beyond my own comprehension.
Leaving the confines of Regions Hospital, where she has received treatment since the traumatic diagnosis in March of 2011, we met first in the Physical Therapy Department of North Memorial Medical Center.
This institution has been a part of my own life for nearly half a century as it is the place where I got my tonsils out when I was six. It’s the place where my sister was born. It’s the place where…no matter, this place holds a large chunk of the memories I have of hospitals and has even played a role in a novel I’m writing. This sprawling institution not only added wings and parking ramps, programs and a Level I Trauma Treatment Center with helicopter ambulances and training programs for paramedics (my son trained there on several occasions); it also spilled over into an abandoned shopping mall and now generates more business than the mall itself – possibly more than the entire STRIP of malls extending west for over a mile!
The PT was an eye-opening experience as the therapist, appalled at the lack of treatment my wife received at the “other hospital”, decided to start all over again and treat her RIGHT. This hour-and-a-half appointment is everything it SHOULD have been and while the therapist is not promising miracles, she IS promising commitment.
In fact, some of the things she told my wife are disheartening: the body pain will not likely go away: she was injected with toxic poisons that absolutely killed the CANCER cells, but created an immense amount of collateral damage (more on that next week). She will likely have to learn to live with some level of pain forever.
BUT, the therapist has a positive prognosis for reducing the lymphedema swelling and increasing the strength of my wife’s grip. She also had warnings that were never passed on at the Other Hospital: never, never, never expose the arm to cold. Never, never, never get a cortisone shot again. As well, she had positive news, too: “I can get rid of the trigger finger symptom in PT! We WILL work on that!”
All-in-all a great beginning to the first hospital-change-visit!
Then to the actual cancer clinic. After cataloguing pain and desires, the new doctor ordered blood work to check for any cancer markers. As well, she answered a burning question my wife had: “Why didn’t they order a CAT scan or an MRI or any other kind of scan? Shouldn’t they be checking to see if there’s any cancer?”
The new doctor FIRST informed us that a typical CAT scan exposes a patient to the amount of radiation equivalent to 100 X-rays!!!! (More on that later!) MRI wasn’t even considered. Secondly, she said that the only time they order them is when the patient is having pain – of if they were in Stage IV (“Stage IV describes invasive breast cancer that has spread beyond the breast and nearby lymph nodes to other organs of the body, such as the lungs, distant lymph nodes, skin, bones, liver, or brain.”) My wife was NOT at that stage.
To summarize: in an act of incredible bravery, my wife changed hospitals, doctors and clinics. The change appears at this point to have been for the better and she is getting the care that she should have been getting all along. The added bonus (and the simple explanation we give to people who ask and don’t really have time to hear the complete answer) is that North is CLOSER. A fifteen minute, local road drive from both of our jobs compared to a 45 minute interstate drive to Regions.
This is a good thing – and not only will I keep you posted, I’ll be talking more about collateral damage in chemotherapy and CAT scans in later posts!
Resources: http://www.breastcancer.org/symptoms/diagnosis/staging#stage4
Image: https://www.itriagehealth.com/https_image_proxy?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.healthagen.com%2Fassets%2FNorthmemorial%2Fupdated%2Fnorth-memorial-MC-EC.png
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