Health Diaries > Colon Cancer > Llama Farming with Colon Cancer

May 10, 2006

A Doctor Who Really Listens

Today I visited my family doctor. We had a good long chat, about 30 minutes. That's unheard of to get that much time with a doctor. He clarified all I wanted to know, even though some of it was not the best news. I made the appointment to discuss my higher than normal blood pressure. That took about 2 minutes. He doesn't think it's high enough to worry about, but a good idea to keep monitoring it. At this time he'll do nothing about it. The liver is an all new problem. I did not have A spot. I had, and still have, several spots. Some of them are not much bigger than a pencil point. None of them have increased in size, which is good, but none of them has shrunk that much With the anti-bodies as the only treatment probably the best we can do is to keep them from growing. So, the future doesn't look real bright and as I had already come to grips with, looks like a lifetime of treatment to hold things off. He said what I already knew that this type of cancer can never to cured, at least at this time. I took CT scan pictures and radiologist reports with me, but the clinic had been keeping him informed as to what was happening so the scans weren't used. Obviously, he went into some detail, including the experimental program, and I'm just hitting the highlights of our talk. He was sorry that Dr. Stephens and I had our "disagreement" and said that if I ever lost confidence in what he was doing we could get a second opinion. He said he was confident of Dr. Stephens concern for his patients best interest and has had some of his own family members go to him. I just wish he could sit down and explain things like we did today. I guess that's what sets a family physician off from some specialists. I continue to learn alot from this experience. I do have a curious mind. I also have been reminded that a little knowledge can be dangerous. I'm sorry that I thought I was clear for the time being and just keeping things from returning. I had all these past months operating on false hopes and informing all of you falsely. I certainly will be much more careful in the future to not jump to conclusions from my self-diagnosis. Maybe I need to stop looking at cat scan pictures. I hope my hitting the high spots were clear to you, as bad as they were I guess I don't want to talk about them that much. At least my body is accepting the drugs with minor reactions, so we will continue for at least 4 months on the current program.
Good health to all of you.

Posted by Robert on May 10, 2006 6:25 PM | DIGG | del.icio.us | furl