Randy's Blog

Lately, over the last two or three weeks, I have been trying to get an MRI, ordered by my doctor due to an obstructed bile duct in my liver, where the growth of a cancer lesion has closed off the bile duct, causing my digestion to be impaired, and a lot of pain and discomfort day and night that accompanies the condition.  The backlog in getting the MRI, so the doctors can see what they will have to deal with in surgery, has been horrendous, as the administration of these facilities possibly seem to be choosing greed over patient comfort, by not administering prompt services based on the growing demands of the area where these services are supposed to be delivered, and seemingly not really caring that patients have to endure the pain and suffering of delayed procedures not being performed in a timely manner.   In addition, once the MRI had been performed, the physicians and support staff are so backlogged, apparently due to the same assumed greedy administrative management...

I was reflecting back on something my Oncologist told us during one of my visits very recently. He told us that his wife has a very close female friend whose husband had the same exact condition I was diagnosed with, having a cancerous tumor in his colon, metastatic cancer on the lungs and liver, stage 4 cancer.  The patient was only about 40 years old, and my doctor was telling his wife to tell her friend about me, that I had survived the same circumstances for 3+ years, in order to give this patient's wife some hope.  He told his wife to tell her friend, who was just inconsolable over her husband's diagnosis, and likely future prognosis, that he has a good chance of living longer than anticipated, and that during that time, they might discover new drugs that have a very positive influence on controlling cancer. Anyway, the patient had his surgery to remove the tumor, just as I did, but died 27 days later, no complications ...