3 ms·

Why is "You might have cancer" even an email at all? Shouldn't that be done face to face? When I was diagnosed with the cancer the nurses wouldn't even tell me

Why is "You might have cancer" even an email at all? Shouldn't that be done face to face? When I was diagnosed with the cancer the nurses wouldn't even tell me I had cancer until I was sitting down with the haematologist, even so far as going to tell me when they asked me to come in to discuss my blood test that, "Don't worry that your appointment is in <St. Cancer wing>, that's just where our department is based". ( I didn't believe them, I was feeling incredibly rough at the time, cancer made sense. )

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
dieselgate 3y ago
I remember very distinctly when my mom got the word over fax, not sure what communications were had before that. Wishing you good health
PunchTornado 3y ago
The letter didn't said "You have cancer, tell bye to your loved ones" with big bold letters. It said something like you should come to the hospital for further checks. Which in the internal procedure is done only for those that the test detected with cancer. (Source I'm in the pilot)
- xnorswap 3y ago
  [flagged]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Someone 3y ago
> Why is "You might have cancer" even an email at all? Shouldn't that be done face to face? Not necessarily, but you’d have to phrase it as “we need to take a closer look”. If you’re doing population screening, you often have so many false positives that the probability that you have cancer, given that you had a positive test result, still is fairly low (for example, if 1:10,000 people have cancer, and the test is 100% reliable for those having cancer, and 99% for qthose who don’t, ≈1:100 people will be false positives, so in the group who tested positive, ≈99:100 would be false positives)
sleepytimetea 3y ago
Did you make it ? :-)
- xnorswap 3y ago
  If you're asking if I'm still alive, then yes. If you're asking if I have "beat" cancer, then no. My cancer isn't curable. It doesn't even technically go into "remission", although some nurses will refer to it as such once it gets to an undetectable level; others will be more precise about simply saying it's at an undetectable level. It's still there, it will return, most likely in a year or two. I have already lived longer than the headline "statistics" would suggest, partly due to my unusual age (typical age is 80+, I'm less than half that), and partly due to new treatments that haven't yet fed into the historic survivability statistics. I'm doing just fine for now though thanks, the biggest impact on my life is that I only work part time because I need time off for medical appointments and I'm unlikely to get a mortgage ( if I could get one, I wouldn't want to borrow from a bank irresponsible enough to lend to someone not predicted to live for half the mortgage term! ). I'm fortunate to live somewhere that I've never so much as even seen a hospital bill, I've never had to worry about insurance or co-pays, or go fund-me. I've therefore had the privilege to focus entirely on my own health, as well as having supportive employers who have let me work flexibly throughout. I very much appreciate this doesn't apply to everyone, even within my own country if I worked in different circumstances or for different employers I may have had a very different experience. I've veered very off topic from the original post though, so I'll probably rein in my posting about this topic now.
croes 3y ago
It should be always face to face. I know it's not possible but getting a call to come next week to discuss the results makes a hell of a week to wait.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

dieselgate 3y ago

I remember very distinctly when my mom got the word over fax, not sure what communications were had before that. Wishing you good health

PunchTornado 3y ago

The letter didn't said "You have cancer, tell bye to your loved ones" with big bold letters. It said something like you should come to the hospital for further checks. Which in the internal procedure is done only for those that the test detected with cancer. (Source I'm in the pilot)

xnorswap 3y ago
[flagged]

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Someone 3y ago

> Why is "You might have cancer" even an email at all? Shouldn't that be done face to face? Not necessarily, but you’d have to phrase it as “we need to take a closer look”. If you’re doing population screening, you often have so many false positives that the probability that you have cancer, given that you had a positive test result, still is fairly low (for example, if 1:10,000 people have cancer, and the test is 100% reliable for those having cancer, and 99% for qthose who don’t, ≈1:100 people will be false positives, so in the group who tested positive, ≈99:100 would be false positives)

sleepytimetea 3y ago

Did you make it ? :-)

xnorswap 3y ago
If you're asking if I'm still alive, then yes. If you're asking if I have "beat" cancer, then no. My cancer isn't curable. It doesn't even technically go into "remission", although some nurses will refer to it as such once it gets to an undetectable level; others will be more precise about simply saying it's at an undetectable level. It's still there, it will return, most likely in a year or two. I have already lived longer than the headline "statistics" would suggest, partly due to my unusual age (typical age is 80+, I'm less than half that), and partly due to new treatments that haven't yet fed into the historic survivability statistics. I'm doing just fine for now though thanks, the biggest impact on my life is that I only work part time because I need time off for medical appointments and I'm unlikely to get a mortgage ( if I could get one, I wouldn't want to borrow from a bank irresponsible enough to lend to someone not predicted to live for half the mortgage term! ). I'm fortunate to live somewhere that I've never so much as even seen a hospital bill, I've never had to worry about insurance or co-pays, or go fund-me. I've therefore had the privilege to focus entirely on my own health, as well as having supportive employers who have let me work flexibly throughout. I very much appreciate this doesn't apply to everyone, even within my own country if I worked in different circumstances or for different employers I may have had a very different experience. I've veered very off topic from the original post though, so I'll probably rein in my posting about this topic now.

croes 3y ago

It should be always face to face. I know it's not possible but getting a call to come next week to discuss the results makes a hell of a week to wait.