Monday, April 23, 2007

Dear people: Stop questioning our doctor of choice

Boy, ya’ll sure do get nervous around a do-nothing cancer doctor and slacker-type cancer patients. “Surely, surely, there’s something to be done!” you exclaim. You have clips from magazines and anecdotes from friends. “Don’t do nothing!”

Dan and I have been avid healthcare consumers for several years, and we know the difference between good and bad doctors by now. It is very difficult to have to justify our choices to people we assumed would trust our judgment. For crying out loud, it took us over a year to buy a new stove. Do you really think we don’t know how to Google a doctor?

I’ve written my thoughts on doing nothing and counter-intuitively, why it may be a harder treatment choice than chemo or some other active treatment. I’ll try to expand on those thoughts later this week, and more importantly, see if Dan has something to offer. (Though he already kind of has here.)

Dan’s friend who recommended Dr. G to him died this weekend. When this gentleman was originally diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, his life expectancy was 1-3 years. He lived for more than 20 years with his cancer. And he gave us two great things: hope, and a doctor we can work with.

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