Momdate January 7th

It warms the cockles of my heart to know that both of our political parties claim in some form or another to be compassionate and caring when it comes to the needs of us their supposed employers.

The more I experience our health care system either personally or vicariously through the illnesses of friends and family the more I wonder where the hell we went wrong.

The latest is another in the ongoing saga of my mother’s vain attempt to receive straight answers and proper care from the many doctors who have consulted and/or been actively involved in her breast/bone cancer treatment.

Before Christmas her oncologist better known here as doctor god suggested that a permanent stint inserted above her right breast bone might make managing her pain easier. He referred her to a pain management specialist who will now be forever enshrined on these pages as doctor sadist.

Her first entailed filling out several forms and not being seen until almost two hours after her scheduled appointment. doctor sadist finally graced her with his presence. Discussed the stint for all of two minutes than informed her that they would not be able to continue the appointment because he needed a current MRI to judge how effective injections into a stint might be in managing her pain.

Christmas found us all gathered at my sister’s house. Mom was very optimistic about the outcome of the MRI and the possibility of the stint and passing her days with less pain. In November she had reached the maximum on her med allowance, which meant she had to pay out of pocket for December’s painkillers. Doctor god worked with her in getting the maximum bang for what she could reasonably afford. The pain reduction was not as complete but she was able to reasonably deal with the pain. All the while looking forward to the stint.

Fast forward to this past Thursday. She arrived at the office of doctor sadist to find the waiting area reasonably deserted. She assumed she would be seen on time since the office appeared to be rather slow.

O’ what foolish mortals we can be when we assume things.

Thirty minutes after arrival she still was not officially logged in by the office staff, in fact she could hear them on the other side of the wall laughing and eating there lunch even though the office was supposed to be open.

After banging on the counter she was finally able to catch someone’s attention. They checked her in pulled her file and led her to one of the patient rooms. Where, you guessed it she was basically told to wait again for the doctor.

On one hand she was ready to walk out right then but the lure of reduced pain kept her butt stuck to the cold plastic of her chair. Forty-five minutes passed before doctor sadist made his appearance. He was accompanied by the results of her MRI. He sat down and proceeded to morph from doctor to used body part salesman.

Never once mentioning the stint he explained to my mom that she had a good sized tumor on her right hip bone and the bone itself was basically powder that by some miracle still resembled an actual hip. His recommendation was that she under go elective hip replacement surgery. Doctor sadist felt that this would help reduce her overall pain. Ignoring the fact that some of the pain in her hip was related to the cancerous tumor pressuring her sciatic nerve.

Of course mom looked at him as if he was some alien life form emerging from a UFO. With remarkable self control she informed him that with the cancer and her heart condition she was not under going any elective surgery and that she would wait for it to become necessary before having any form of hip replacement.

Now she thought he will discuss the stint.

Again doctor sadist was ready to disappoint her.

His next brilliant recommendation was for her to kill off all of her bone marrow, not for a transplant but because killing off the bone marrow will reduce the pain for six weeks.

WHAT?????

My mom swears that at this point her jaw hit the floor. This made no sense to her at all. In fact she had heard of this treatment from doctor god, who had said it was only for patients in the last stages and was designed to make their final weeks less painful. Yes my mom is in quite a bit of pain but thank God she is nowhere near death.

She explained to him again that not only does she have extensive bone cancer but that 1/3 of her heart is damaged beyond repair and that his treatment ideas sound a bit drastic.

Doctor sadist went on to explain that there was one more option.

And yes you are right mom was still hoping he would get to the stint but deep down inside she assumed that the stint was not happening and his idea would be something else entirely.

Of course she was right. His final suggestion was that she have cortisone shots in her bad hip to aid in reducing the pain. This she thought might be worth trying so she agreed.

She, again wrongly, assumed he would leave and one of the nurses would come in with a needle filled with cortisone. Simple right.

Instead doctor sadist led her out of the back into and out of the waiting room to the office next door. Here he informed her is where she would come for her cortisone shots. She signed in and much to her surprise one of the office staff from doctor sadist’s office was there to sign her in.

Mom wrote her name on the check in list and was told there would be some papers to fill out. The clerk handed her some forms and she began to look them over. She realized that they were the exact same forms she had received and completed next door. Before she could inform the clerk she was told that she might as well sit down because the forms would take awhile to complete.

Mom informed her that she had already completed these forms next door. She was told with a straight face that they needed copies to. Well mom lost it than threw the forms back on the counter and said she was leaving.

The clerk with a straight face actually asked if she would be back later to complete the forms and receive her shots. NOT.

Mom was frustrated and after snooping around a bit found that doctor sadist had three side by side offices and he siphoned off patients to doctors working for him in those offices for procedures he convinced patients they needed.

Mom being reasonably intelligent and still with all her senses working saw through his scam. I can only imagine how many seniors or uneducated patients have gone through his office agreeing to treatments that were not in the long run going to be successful.

It is scary and it boggles the mind.

Needless to say the stint is on the back burner now. With the new year mom has insurance available again for her meds. She is going to research some more and find out what her options are. Hopefully she will find the right combination of meds to make life easier for her.