Could you please post (or re-post) the link for the article:
"Cancer...uneasy?"
I was just explaining to my boss recently how I know that my father no longer
takes good health for GRANTED. I think that is part of his fears and
depression (very withdrawn). For a *month* or even longer, he suffered with
a lung "infection" - had a great deal of pain and coughing. He never said
it, but I KNOW what went through his mind - mine also. And THAT is why he
never called his doctor. He didn't want to hear those words again... The
sad thing is that she saw the infection on his battery of tests a month
earlier and never contacted him.
As a result I sent his doctor this letter/fax:
July 12, 2000
To Dr. Anna, et.al.:
I have just learned (from my stepmother, Virginia) in the past two days that
the sometimes severe and debilitating pain my father has been experiencing
for the past several weeks is due to an infection! An infection that he and
my stepmother were informed by you or your office (at his visit this week)
had been noted by you on the last set of tests done approximately a month
ago. If this was observed a month ago, WHY wasn't he contacted and treated
in all this time? Why was he left to worry and wonder (and deteriorate) at
the cause of the pain? Pain so bad that Virginia said, "…he had to walk
sideways." You know, after all this time, that he is not likely to contact
you with problems; the least you could do is keep up with problems that are
delivered to your attention!
Even if it wasn't necessary to inform him of the test result, a caring and
responsible doctor would at least check in via a phone call to his/her
patient, particularly an elderly one, to see if the infection was causing a
problem! I am constantly amazed at the lack of compassion you have shown my
father from the beginning. You had better pray hard, Dr. Anna, that this
awful disease never touches anyone you love--and that if it ever does, that
you will be more fortunate that I am, that your loved one has a doctor who
is far less remote, with some COMPASSION and interest not only in the
patient's body, but his/her whole being, mind and spirit included. My father
is one of the most precious people in my life, particularly since my mother
died when I was still very young. You have in your hands a big part of my
life! I wish you didn't dismiss that so readily.
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