I am under the care of four doctors right now…my primary, my surgeon, my chemo doc, and my radiation doc.
Now, “under the care” doesn’t mean I’m in the hospital…just that while I’m going through this breast cancer stuff, these four people will be in my life for a few years.
Before my surgery, my surgeon and my radiation doc (RD) said I needed a lumpectomy. My chemo doc (CD) said I needed a mastectomy. Fortunately, my surgeon made the call for a melon baller to the ladies rather than a carving knife, so I still have Lefty.
I have an appt with CD next week, so he ordered some tests for me this week, a PET scan and a CT scan. Since I am a multitasker at heart, I took Tuesday off, saw the dentist, had the PET scan, then saw RD.
RD was surprised that I’d had a PET scan, since it had been six weeks since my radiation treatments concluded. He said that normally you wait three months, since your body is still healing from the radiation and a PET scan may show a false positive. He said he’d been part of a practice that did a lot of research on this, and he even wrote a chapter in a book on this topic. He told me not to freak if there was something on the PET scan, but to wait another six weeks and have another one.
Does CD not know this? When I see him next week, if something does pop on the PET scan, I will tell him what RD said, but what does a patient do when there is more than one doctor treating you and they disagree on treatment and tests and such?