2 Oncologists, Confusing Answers

Here's something nobody tells you. Once they say it can't be cured, you'd think the decisions get easier. They don't. They get harder.

Every choice now is a trade. More time or better time, and sometimes you don't get both. And I'm making those calls with a wife, 2 sons, 2 grandkids, and a business all riding on it.

My first oncologist was at Bassett. That was the September 28 appointment from my first post, the one on Charlotte's birthday and our anniversary. Here's what I didn't mention. She didn't even know I had a bypass coming up. She hadn't prepared for the appointment at all. So I handed her my own 6-page brief. My genetic results, my heart, my kidneys, everything she'd need to know. We went through it line by line, and she confirmed my research was right. All of it, including the 8 to 12 months left to live.

We found out later she was a per diem doctor. Think about that. You're sitting there hearing how long you've got left to live, from a doctor who's learning your case off a brief you prepared yourself.

She recommended the standard treatment for my kind of lung cancer. Chemo plus immunotherapy. You've seen the commercials for Keytruda. That's the immunotherapy. And even the standard version has to be watered down for my kidneys.

There's a stronger combo, chemo plus 2 immunotherapy drugs instead of 1, with better numbers for my type of cancer. That was the one I'd been counting on. She shut it down. With my heart, my kidneys, and my diabetes, she thought it could put me in the hospital after every round, and that would cost me more time than it buys.

Then on Saturday, October 3, I got a second opinion at St. Peter's in Albany. That oncologist started somewhere totally different. He didn't want to start with chemo at all. With everything else going on with me, he said chemo could make me really sick, put me in the hospital, or kill me. Then his written notes came through, and he'd landed on chemo and immunotherapy too. That's a little odd. You hear one thing in the room, then read something different after you've left.

2 oncologists. 2 very different conversations. Pretty much the same answer on paper.

I'm still staying with the oncologist at St. Peter's. I like him better, and he seems more knowledgeable. And he said something I didn't expect from a doctor. He said something like, "I'm a good oncologist, but the people at Sloan Kettering and Dana-Farber, they're the elite of the elite." And he told me to go see one of them. I respect the hell out of that.

So that's the next fight, getting in to see one of them. I already wrote the letter for him to sign myself. Now we wait. I'll write about that one when I know how it ends.

October 20, another PET scan. October 21, back to St. Peter's to lock in the plan. That's if I can't get into Sloan Kettering before then. Then round 1.