Doctors Screw you with Cancer

I get so frustrated with doctors.  When you have cancer they go on and on about how imminent it is to make your decisions about treatment quickly and get the treatments started right away.  Then they screw up appointments, move appointments, and put you off forever, or make you sit in their offices for hours at a time wasting your very shortened and precious time.

I was very pleased when UCLA called to set up my consult appointment.  I thought it showed a degree of compassion and organization skills on their part.  But when I tried to choose an appointment date, they put me off for more than two weeks.  This was just for the consult.  So I waited on pins and needles, wanting to get the consult over with, hoping that they would do the surgery.  I know I’m not a very good candidate for surgery, so it’s stressful waiting for an answer as to whether they will or will not do it.  Just two days before the appointment, the call and reschedule it.  When I spoke to the person re-setting the appointment, they talked about another date several weeks down the road.  I responded with, “I’m told how important it is to get this taken care of quickly, and told I only have about 2-4 months to live without surgery, and you want to put everything off until after I die?”  I guess it hit a point, because they gave me Monday, March 7, as the new date.

It’s so frustrating.  I understand patient confidentiality, but shouldn’t the appointment setter be told when an appointment is for someone who is dying very soon?  I really hate this.  I try to be just a little bit optimistic, and their lack of care just shoots it down.  Each of these centers tout how much they care and how they are geared for their patients to give them hope and light, or at least a gentle caring passage.  Bullsh*t.  They don’t even care enough to get your appointments set and stick with them.  They don’t even care enough to stop overbooking patients so you don’t wait two hours for your appointment.  And can you believe this – they charge fees to sign papers for DMV handicap cards, or letters stating your diagnosis for Social Security or Disability, or anything.  The fees range form $50 to $100 a paper.  It’s just another fee on top of al the crap and nonsense you have to go through just to get proper care and have some income support while you die.  It just plain sucks.

And the waiting and running are the worst parts.  You waste your life waiting and running around trying to get a better quality of life during your last few weeks of life.  It just sucks.