One of the purposes of this blog site was to share experiences that so many of us have had with the American medical system, good and bad. But before we got into that part of the conversation I wanted to lay a foundation for my and my family’s experiences by sharing a little about my husband’s passing and what it has meant to us. That is the reason for the blogs that begin with the one named “Beginnings”. There are so many things I have learned in this short period of time I call a crash course in life/death that I would have never known before. Even though I had lost people in my life such as wonderful grandparents, my sweet and beautiful niece, my gentle and caring Daddy, my father-in-law with the best sense of humor, none of these prepared me for my husband’s passing. Forty four years is a long time of “sunrise, sunset” and it is difficult to continue as so many people know. But we have lots of reasons to go on and they would want us to do so. So, here are some of our experiences and I hope you will join in with yours to be able to unload some of what you are carrying around. It helps to lighten the load.
I will start by saying this is the last thing we would have expected at this time because Kenny was such a healthy person during his life. The only thing that ever gave him trouble was his back from years of lifting and a hip injury from being kicked by a horse. When we both were contacted by phone one autumn day to be informed that he had cancer, we were shocked. We were especially shocked when my husband, who was in the middle of his work day at our auto repair shop, was told bluntly “you have cancer,” with no preparation and the follow up was, “ I made an appointment for you at so and so, please be there.” He was devastated and had to find a quiet place to deal with the news alone. And to me they said, “I need to make an appointment for your husband’s carcinoma.” I said, “there must be some mistake, he doesn’t have anything like that we don’t need an appointment.” They assured me he did. That was our introduction to the world we were about to enter. And it was strangely appropriate for what would follow.
The next step was the appointments where we were given the full picture of his condition. Only there was disagreement over the severity of the cancer. We were dealing with a team of surgeons and the first one told us it would be a simple surgery and that the cancer was not serious. He wouldn’t even need radiation or chemo. We left greatly relieved and telling each other this was something we could deal with. We contacted family members that were waiting by their phones to see what we learned. Celebrations!! We can do this!
That brings us to the second part of the surgical team who was not so encouraging and literally shocked us right out of our seats by saying, “well this cancer may have spread and we will end up taking several inches of bone and cutting bone out of a different part of your body to replace it and it will take you months to recover, maybe chemo and radiation.” What? That is not the other surgeon said. “Oh, don’t worry! You’re a big strong man, you’ll come through this just fine. Just leave it to us.”
Our biggest mistake at this point was in not seeking a second, third and even fourth opinion. The ending might have been completely different if we had.
Many people have gone to other physicians after their first devastating opinion was given to them and were given different diagnoses altogether, or the same diagnoses with alternative treatments which were quite successful. My advice to anyone in this situation is don’t be afraid to ask questions, seek multiple opinions, and look into alternative methods. There are many, many kinds that are very successful. As you can see we were not given any credibility as knowing what was best for us, or being intelligent enough to have an opinion that mattered. Should anyone find themselves in this situation or a similar one, you be in control of your life and your treatments. Don’t be steamrolled!
More later.