We'll start with the good news first.
I do not need Chemo or Radiation! This is huge, because those are reportedly the worst parts of cancer treatment. My incision is healing up quite nicely and I no longer have a drain hanging out of my body. Essentially, all I have left to do is start hormone therapy and slowly expand the tissue expander to a larger size to get ready for my implant/reduction surgery.
Now. Let's go into what I went through to LEARN that I didn't need radiation. Aside from every single doctor telling me that I probably didn't need radiation since they removed the lump and the entire surrounding area which they would need to target with radiation. I got a referral from the cancer surgeon "just to make sure." I'm a little salty about the cancer surgeon now anyway, because I'm still required to see her despite her part of the treatment being over. BUT I DIGRESS. She sent a referral over. Didn't hear anything for two weeks. I didn't even know the name of the doctor. UNTIL, I got a call from someone about missing an appointment. They made me an appointment and didn't bother to call me about it. The woman on the phone asked me if I knew I had an appointment, and when I told her I had no communication from anyone about any of this, she said she wasn't surprised. So I guess this is a normal thing for them. So we scheduled a "follow up" appointment, for 1:15pm. I repeated the time a few times. 1:15pm. I tend not to schedule things after Noon since I work overnight, but they didn't give me any other options.
So the day of the appointment I show up at 1. I have to fill out a ton of paperwork that takes me about 20 minutes to fill out, but still, I'm there around the time I'm supposed to be. At around 2pm I ask the front desk how much longer it's going to be. I'm told that the person scheduled before me is still meeting with the doctor. In my head, I'm thinking these people must just be running super late today. I find a bathroom and have to wait until around 2:45 before someone calls me back. I'm sleepy and cranky at this point, so the nurse goes through her info quickly and puts me in a room. She calls the doctor several times to tell him that I'm waiting. He walks in and is cordial. I tell him I've been waiting since 1pm. He informs me that I was scheduled for a 2:15 appointment. I'm clearly fucking annoyed, but he's really friendly and says he thinks they are trying to punish him for taking 3 days off by scheduling 3 days of work into half a day. He also told me that my cancer surgeon likes to send him patients even when they obviously don't need radiation. "Just to make sure."
Long story short: My tumor wasn't big enough to warrant any radiation and the margins weren't very large, so I don't have to go back to this office again. The doctor was apologetic and to be fair I don't think it was really his fault. But this is the same building that gave me an inconclusive date for my genetic testing, leading me to show up a week early. Hopefully I won't have to deal with them anymore and I gave them a negative review on google, which is all I can really do at this point.
I'm annoyed about this obviously unorganized cancer center, but also about the fact that my cancer surgeon just likes sending people to appointments that they probably don't need. I just feel like they could easily call each other and look over my information and tell me that I don't need radiation. Just like the last time I visited this surgeon, I literally had to wait in the waiting room for 45 minutes, and all she did during our appointment was ask me questions about what the other doctors have said. Something that could be done over the phone, or even a virtual visit. It all seems very unnecessary. Especially during a fucking pandemic when I'm not eligible for a vaccine yet, despite the fact that I'm going through cancer treatment. Like, it's enough that I have to deal with that, but on top of it, I have to go to a million fucking doctors, when they could have just had a conversation and concluded what treatment I actually needed.
