F#*&%@& health professionals

As my regular readers know I have an ongoing battle with the big C. Most of the time I am winning, or at least I am not losing ground... (I should statistically speaking be dead by now but it wasn't on my agenda so the funeral arrangements are OFF)

Anyway I have been contemplating this for a month or two or three or six. Nearly two years ago surgeons in Auckland figured I was so terminal I wasn't even worth biopsying and closed me back up. It was only the other week that they admitted that to me. Nearly two years later my only health problems are those caused by surgeons and extra heavy doses of toxic substances into my bloodstream (chemo that is, but a hard drug addiction would not necessarily be more harmful I think occasionally - and would probably be a darn sight more fun). Yes I still have cancer but not to any degree much greater than I did two years ago - and it is less than what I had initially in 2000.

In October 2005 I told them all to sod off and I wasn't having any more chemo that wasn't likely to work anyway, they could give me a ring when they wanted a new wonder drug tested. I had to tell them repeatedly to sod off over three months as they kept sending me appointments. After that I gave in and went and had a scan (had always intended to do that anyway, was just sick of it all) - and I had another one six months after that which showed some growth in the main tumor they keep monitoring. So they zapped that with some radiotheraphy and that did exactly what it was hoped it would do - reduced the thing to a quarter of it's size.

So over the last two weeks I've been scanned and inspected by the Gynacologist and the Oncologist. And right now I am furious.

There is a thickening in the scar tissue (that's where they have sliced me up the middle twice) that wasn't on the last scan. The radiologist recommends further investigation. The Gynacologist wants to biopsy and look at surgery or radiation for this new bit if it proves to be cancer. He is willing to consider giving my insides a good going over as he wonders why some of those unbiopsied bits haven't done anything and thinks it wouldn't be unreasonable to have a look at them. They may not be cancer. It is perfectly common to have cysts on your internal organs. He does however freely admit that he is not an Ovarian cancer expert, his speciality is a bit different and he has me on his patient list because he is the best there is in this area, not the best all round.

So today I get to see the Oncologist. This guy is apparently God - ask anyone who knows him. Actually I quite liked him until today, now I want to take a submachine gun to him. (would be something immensely satisfying about laying waste to a heap of hospital staff somehow). He might as well have not seen me today. He finds the biopsy idea "pointless" (his word) surgery or radiation "a waste of time" and his best recommendation is I have some more of the chemo that didn't work last time. When I said it didn't work last time he said "well there is a small chance it might this time" I was then shuffled out of the surgery and told to come back in two months - the implication was get my act together in the meantime and line up for some more systematic poisoning.

As time goes by I feel more and more that this is a slow growing cancer, and that long term control is within my grasp if someone would just do something about it (cut or zap the thing out). They are so close to figuring out cures using gene therapy (and as this is a hereditary type I am a sitter for trialling these and possibly getting a cure - there is no cure at the moment, only control). Why can't these so called experts look outside their own tunnels. There is no indication that any chemo will work, lets look outside the square.

Might be time to get a second opinion... the guy I would ideally like to see is in Christchurch, it might be worth the plane trip.

And the next time someone tries to fob me off I'm going to hit them.