The Cancer Industry

I had a follow-up with the Oncology (Chemotherapy and other cancer medications) people today, after having my follow-up with my actual surgeon last week.  What a difference in outlook and treatment recommendations.

My surgeon did a physical exam of my right breast and pronounced it free of tumours.  She said this was a slow-growing cancer that would appear first in the surviving breast if anywhere, and therefore frequent exams would make all the difference.  She said if it were to appear, it usually would do so within the first two years.

Today, the doctor was not even there.  I saw a Nurse Practitioner, who instantly told me about the 'baby cancer' bits floating throughout my body that put me at risk because I refused chemotherapy and was not taking any of the cancer-inhibiting tablets.  She threatened and attempted to bully me into taking the newest experimental 'anti-cancer' drug.

When I asked for a repeat prescription for Lorazepam, a mild anti-anxiety and muscle relaxant, she went off the deep end instantly with a diatribe about its addictive powers and how her mother ended up psychotic in a mental institution because of this particular medication.

Does she not understand that it was not the drug but some inherent insanity in her own family that caused her mother to migrate to a psych ward?  Did she not understand cause and effect?  Furthermore, how could she fail to comprehend that applying a personal situation to a medical diagnosis and personal prejudice was simply UNPROFESSIONAL?

Worse than that, however, was the way she was peddling a new anti-cancer drug as though terror alone should be sufficient to persuade me to enroll in a programme that was essentially experimental in nature with yet another anti-cancer medication that had far more dangerous potential side effects (including CANCER!!!, STROKE!!!, DEATH!!!) than the small quantity of Lorazepam I had taken in the past and had proven helpful.

It never ceases to amaze me how certain buzzwords can rob otherwise sedate, presumably intelligent individuals of ALL dignity and capacity for logic.  Does she not realise this is more of an indictment of her own family genes than of me?  To me, addiction is only as powerful as the desire to be addicted.  When the necessity for the 'addictive' item no longer exists, one ceases to use it.  Sometimes there are brief, uncomfortable moments, but living in constant pain is far worse than any withdrawal from a drug.  Has no one ever made THAT comparison?

Postscript:  I complained about her to my General Practitioner, and received not long after this, a survey from the network that employed the Oncology Nurse Practitioner and was able not only to give her a rating of zero out of ten, but to explain why I was doing so.   I truly believe that this woman either needs to transfer to an area that does not require patient-practitioner interactions, or to learn how to speak to cancer patients.  To tell me essentially that I was DOOMED if I did not surrender to an experimental scheme of treatment was unethical in my view, as well as inaccurate.  I do not wish to ruin this woman's professional career.  I simply wish to make her employer aware of the need to educate her a little in ethics as well as essentially how to behave in a professional manner, and not drive an individual who has lived in absolute terror and gone through hell to leap off a cliff in despair.