My father has prostate cancer and he’s had surgery scheduled for a few weeks now and it’s set for the 26th, less than two weeks from today. Yesterday, my mother was in the office and the nurse said the doctor wanted to talk to her. He said he’d wanted to speak to them since conversing with them last week, that he didn’t feel, didn’t want, to conduct the surgery, that he wasn’t comfortable with their doctor-patient relationship.
WTF?
Here’s the whole scoop, as far as I have the details:
A few days before Christmas, my father got his latest PSA results and they were elevated. He has them checked every 6 months because of a study he was part of a few years back. So, New Years rolls around and my mother breaks her ankle in four places and my parents have to deal with that, and drive back to Florida from my sisters place in Michigan.
Back home, which is another detail- they are building a house and are about 40 days from closing, mom starts physical therapy and dad starts visiting doctors. Sure enough, the PSA levels are up because he does, in fact, have cancer. A fun side effect of the study he was part of years ago- the study was for an anti-prostate cancer drug and while people were on the drug, they did have a much lower incidence of developing the cancer, BUT, once they were off the drug, if they did develop prostate cancer, it had a much greater chance of being the more aggressive form. Woohoo. So, yeah.
So dad was checking with radiologists and cutters, seeing as how this needed taken care of. They are down in Ocala, Florida, doing the retired people thing, and it turns out that there is supposed to be a clinic there that has a new robot-guided surgery for prostate removal that is supposed to greatly reduce the effects of surgery (hospitalization time, physical trauma, time to recovery, etc.) so after weighing the pros and cons of each method, they chose the robot option.
A week or so ago they find out that the doctor they had been consulting with is not yet Board Certified for the surgery, but his associate is, so they ask if he can perform the operation. “Sure,” they said, “would you like to meet with him?” My parents, figuring they had already gotten the low-down from the first guy, didn’t really see a need to talk to the second guy, which I guess he was insulted by. But they eventually do go to meet with him, last week, and since they were meeting him, they went ahead and asked a slew of questions, as they always do. Further, my father had been having issues with bowel movements lately, surely due to nerves since he’s frankly scared senseless, but since he was in the doctors office anyway, he asked about that. The doctor told him it wasn’t due to the cancer in his prostate but my father asked about it again, to see if there was something going on down there that he should be concerned about. The doctor again told him it wasn’t due to the cancer and started getting huffy. They moved on to other things and that was that.
Until yesterday. My other was in the area for a mammogram and went by the doctors office to ask them if they could write a script for my father for something to help him sleep, since he is so wound up, he just isn’t able to get a moments rest. Cut to the scene above- the nurse asks her to meet with the doctor, who first chides her for asking for something for my father, nevermind that the guy is beside himself with worry, and then telling her that he “doesn’t feel comfortable” with my father as a patient. It comes out that he was put off that they didn’t want to meet with him and was further upset that my father kept asking questions once they finally did meet. Then he has the balls, the unmitigated gall to tell my mother that his malpractice insurance carrier has instructed him not to take difficult patients or risky patients.
It should be noted that to date, my fathers records show only that he has prostate cancer, it has not spread and it hasn’t shown to be overly aggressive, it’s just plain old prostate cancer. He’s 69, active, non/never-smoker and in good health, a few, 15 maybe 20 pounds over weight, so he’s really no more of a risk than any other patient as far as the actual cancer goes. The thing that it seems to me is that he’s a bit more informed, having been part of the study years ago and generally very well read on subjects of interest to him. So yeah, both of my parents have spent much time reading up, talking to people and otherwise researching this thing, I guess an informed patient constitutes a risk to this guy.
My father has already filled out and filed all the paperwork, he’s started giving blood, he has been preparing for his surgery that was schedule in twelve days and this touch-feely doctor gets his precious nose bent out of shape that someone would have the nerve to ask him questions and cancels the operation.
I mean, it’s not like it’s important, right. Hell, cancer? Yeah, that’s an elective surgery these days, right? Cosmetic, almost. I’m sure it won’t be a big deal for them to change their whole choice of procedure, find another clinic and start the process all over again, right? Sure, he can do that whenever he gets around to it, no hurry.
The forum rules state “no wishing death on someone” and I don’t wish death on this prick doctor- I wish pain on him. Long, drawn-out, agonizing pain. Sleepless nights of wailing and worrying, of doubt and fear, of anger and helplessness. I don’t want him dead, I want him to suffer.
So I hope you rot, Dr. Paub, of the Associates for Urology Care, 1901 SE 18th Ave, Ocala, Florida.
PS: I just got off the phone with my folks and they had just left the doctors office- it turns out that the first guy they had been talking to, who had originally told them that he’d been involved in 15-20 of these surgeries admitted that he had only done 5. Nice. A cock-punching for you, too, Dr. Rao.