Sunday, March 29, 2009

Finding a new oncologist

When you have cancer, your oncologist is your go-to guy for everything. (Is it a headache? Is it a brain tumor? These are the important questions.) I like my oncologist. He's generally a good guy, takes time to talk, answers questions, appears like he genuinely cares. I got a letter yesterday and he's leaving practice and going into research full time. Now I have to find a new one. I am not sure how much say I have in the matter but I think I want to do a little research in this.

There are 11 oncs at the hospital where I am treated. Two are women but both are very young. By young I mean, young. How important is years of practice and accumulated knowledge? But then the rest are men. Some them specialize in other things. Some do not list specialties. But the one thing about my current onc is that he is a man. Men and women are made differently and sometimes its nice to have a female doctor. So the toss up goes between the male/female thing or the years of experience thing. I will have to think about this. I am not scheduled to see him again until November so there is some time here. But I don't want to just get assigned to someone. I think I want a little thought put into this. What is very sad is I know so many people I can ask what they think of their oncologist and also check them out that way. Now I am also wondering is it proper to send a thank you note to your doctor if he is leaving practice? I won't see him again before he leaves. I will ponder all this.

Anyway, yesterday was actually spring like. I wore shorts. I gardened. I went for a walk in shorts. I showed off my winter white legs to the outdoors and no one ran screaming away. (On the other hand, today is 45 degrees with promises of down pours and maybe thunderstorms.) I finally got pictures of my iris blooming - six tries later its even mostly in focus.
My second crocus is blooming as well.

And I have lots of little green things peeking up. I did put some fertilizer down and now its raining so I hope between the two, things really start growing this week. (Is it possible to garden and not obsess about it?)

Last night a friend came over for dinner and we played scrabble. She used the ploy of keep pouring us wine so that we would do badly in scrabble. It worked. She won both games. (Moral of the story: if you want to win at scrabble, you must think outside of the box.) Today I have a bunch of things to do but I am not over scheduled. I have errands to run, lunch with my parents, and a trip to the library and then to the gym. That's it but I think that's enough.

1 comment:

Debby said...

You know, Caroline, I think that you need to look at another thing. Experience can sometimes turn the doctor into a know it all, one who thinks that s/he knows so much that your feelings don't matter. My oncologist is a woman, and she is young. Actually, pregnant right now. She is empathetic, and she researches things. I had a terrible reaction to neulasta. Can't use it. She went above and beyond to figure out why, and what to do. I couldn't be happier with her. She is smart. Her inexperience makes her a better listener. Her inexperience makes her go the extra mile.

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