Today's headfuck
Dear Mr Gommersall,
I hope you don't mind me emailing you. I had my consultation with Dr Adab today and I have to say I came away more confused than ever and am hoping you can throw some light on the situation.
On the 12th of this month I had my consultation with you during which you told me that my cancer is muscle invasive and had spread along my urethra. Also, you were concerned about a lymph node in my groin and sent me for a biopsy to verify its involvement. But mainly, you were quite certain that my cancer is not superficial, as previously thought, but most definitely muscle invasive. My new grading and staging was G3T2N?M0. You had seen this with your own eyes and the biopsies you took had confirmed this.
The reason I'm stressing this so much is because at today's consultation (21st March), Mr Adab told me that my cancer is actually superficial. He looked through my notes and told me that all the histology and pathology, all the reports state that it is T1. I explained that you had seen for yourself that it is invasive and he told me he could only rely on the notes he had in front of him. However he realised that he was missing some kind of 'supplementary' report? Will this be the report with the new findings?
I hope you can see why I'm so bewildered and anxious about this. Is it that you were mistaken in thinking my cancer is muscle invasive, and the pathology reports Mr Adab had are correct? Or is it just that he did not have access to the latest information today? The outcome will have an important impact on my treatment; Mr Adab was keen to talk about surgery today, while last week you told me that chemotherapy would be the best treatment for me at this stage.
I told Mr Adab how convinced you seemed that my cancer is muscle invasive and I believe he is going to speak to you tomorrow (Thursday 22nd March) to clarify. If this email reaches you before then, please get back to me if you can. I can cope with bad news, I just don't know what to make of the conflicting views and advice right now.
Many thanks
Jo Coulson
I hope you don't mind me emailing you. I had my consultation with Dr Adab today and I have to say I came away more confused than ever and am hoping you can throw some light on the situation.
On the 12th of this month I had my consultation with you during which you told me that my cancer is muscle invasive and had spread along my urethra. Also, you were concerned about a lymph node in my groin and sent me for a biopsy to verify its involvement. But mainly, you were quite certain that my cancer is not superficial, as previously thought, but most definitely muscle invasive. My new grading and staging was G3T2N?M0. You had seen this with your own eyes and the biopsies you took had confirmed this.
The reason I'm stressing this so much is because at today's consultation (21st March), Mr Adab told me that my cancer is actually superficial. He looked through my notes and told me that all the histology and pathology, all the reports state that it is T1. I explained that you had seen for yourself that it is invasive and he told me he could only rely on the notes he had in front of him. However he realised that he was missing some kind of 'supplementary' report? Will this be the report with the new findings?
I hope you can see why I'm so bewildered and anxious about this. Is it that you were mistaken in thinking my cancer is muscle invasive, and the pathology reports Mr Adab had are correct? Or is it just that he did not have access to the latest information today? The outcome will have an important impact on my treatment; Mr Adab was keen to talk about surgery today, while last week you told me that chemotherapy would be the best treatment for me at this stage.
I told Mr Adab how convinced you seemed that my cancer is muscle invasive and I believe he is going to speak to you tomorrow (Thursday 22nd March) to clarify. If this email reaches you before then, please get back to me if you can. I can cope with bad news, I just don't know what to make of the conflicting views and advice right now.
Many thanks
Jo Coulson