Monday, September 13, 2010

you've got to be kidding me...

"You've got to be kidding." That's all I can really think when I read the summaries from my doctors' offices. As I mentioned a while back I just don't know how to balance the time commitment of radiation along with a job that is supposed to be 50-ish hours a week. So I asked for my doctor to submit information for my short term disability for 1-2 days a week. They provided me a full copy of the radiation oncologist's notes and my oncologist's notes so I could submit it myself. The upside is that they consider me to be "a plesent 35 year old female". However, it seems my oncologist thought I was 4 feet 11 inches... hmmm... I'm actually 5 feet 9 inches (I hope they didn't confuse me with someone else when they treated me!). My radiation oncologist has the slightly more troubling description. If you remember it was my left ovary that had a tumor and my right lymph node that had "rare keratin positive signet ring cells, consistent with isolated tumor cells" (aka cancer). It's also my left lymph node that has been swollen and that was evaluated with the FNA (the Fine Needle Aspiration biopsy that I wrote about a while ago). However my radiation oncologist thinks that all the cancer was on my left. This is probably not an issue as I think they're treating me "bilaterally" i.e. they're beaming the same stuff at both sides; but, since there's nothing in the notes about that and there's the off chance that they're trying to cure me by beaming a side of my body that doesn't need it I put a call in to my doctor's office...

Don't you just envy my life? I just wonder if I were to deliver my work with the same amount of care and detail that these guys do if I wouldn't be fired. Oh - yeah - the kicker - my doctors are considered by their peers to be some of the best in the region. And Seattle is one of the top 5 places to be treated for cancer. No wonder people die from this crap!

5 comments:

  1. You have GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! Unbelievable! Wow. I'm curious to hear what they have to say. Unreal. Absolutely unreal.

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  2. You know, I think "pleasant" must be a term they teach in medical school as that word is used on all my stuff to describe me - just shows how much they don't know about me!

    Hang in there, shorty!

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  3. I did get a call back they said: "don't worry, you're getting the same treatment on both sides" and "boy you're sharp to have noticed that"... I guess flattery will get you everywhere ;)

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  4. Maybe they just finished "The Girl with Dragon Tattoo" and was just merely confused. The girl in it is 4'11", which qualifies her for a handicapped car tag.

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  5. Your right, your left; your ovaries, your kneecaps; aren't we just splitting hairs here??? As for the 4'11" thing, I totally understand. The other day at work I asked this graduate student to check a calculation for me--or so I thought!--but it was actually a homeless man pushing a grocery cart filled with cans. And I wasn't even at work...I was in a pile of leaves under a highway overpass. Point is, anyone can make that type of mistake.

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