The current urologist IS our second opinion. He did the second TURBT procedure and came back with the INCONCLUSIVE pathology report as to whether the cancer is in the bladder wall or not.
I told my Dad I had contacted MD Anderson to see what had happened to his referral and this is his email reply to me: "I think it's too late to do anything else now. I have waited so long for this that I think I should go ahead with it. I think everything will work out--What
ever will be---will be."
I dont' want to frighten him or make him lose whatever faith he has in this urologist who is about to cut him open. But I have MAJOR doubts, especially when the urologist office tells him to show up for this major procedure two hours before the operation!! This doctor has done a radical cystectomy on a man my brother knows with supposedly good results, which is the reason we went to him in the first place. So, that's ONE we know about. But, what we've received in the way of care and followup since this process started is less than acceptable, as far as I'm concerned.
Believe me, my concern is NOT with whether or not the urologist's feelings will be hurt. I couldn't care less about his feelings, especially after he spoke to me (and my father) so rudely on the phone after I paged him to get the pathology results he had promised to call with. During that late Friday night conversation, my father expressed a concern that the urologist didn't seem to want to do the surgery and asked him if it was because he didn't think he would survive the surgery or heal from the surgery, to which the urologist replied "Both of the above." Nice. And this is the same urologist who made a second late Friday evening call the next week to ask my Dad why he had decided to go to MD Anderson and tell him that he would do the surgery, after all. Was he afraid he was about to lose a sizeable amount of revenue? Why that call? My concerns are about my Dad getting the absolute best care, and also with how much time we really have left to get the best outcome. If you ever saw the movie "John Q", that's how I'm beginning to feel.
I dont' know how to ask my Dad to start over. If we were able to get in some place new, how long would it take to get the operation done? Would we be waiting another 3 months? This is my fear. I truly don't think we have that kind of time. I'm so discouraged by my experience with the medical system up to this point. No doctors seem to care or have any compassion or concern about what someone like my Dad might be going through with this terrible diagnosis. Sure, they see it all the time, but that doesn't give them the right to be rude and almost cruel. And, if we do go someplace else to see a different doctor that we still don't know, how do we know we will be treated any differently or better? I'm beginning to think all doctors are like our urologist and don't return calls and have rude office staff. Don't get me wrong. I will put up with anything if the doctor has the absolute best skills for the job. But how do you determine what kind of skills a doctor actually has? Our current urologist is not listed on any of the doctor search sites.