Balancing trust and skeptism

[Guest guest]

Thank you, Liz!. I am taking the liberty of sharing your perspectives with

the other groups - minus identify information.

~ Karl

Subject: Re: [nhl-dlc] Question - PET vs CT

Hi Sheri,

You need both trust and a healthy dose of skepticism. It's a hard balance.

You need to feel confident in the doctors (and they should earn and maintain

that trust). At the same time, realize that you are an important person with

an active role to play, which you seem to be really good at by the way.

Reaching out to us is good and developing good and open communication with

the doctors and nurses is vital too. Sometimes a well placed question can

catch a serious thing that has escaped everyone else's notice or bring

attention to an issue they wouldn't know about unless you'd brought it up.

If they didn't know about a symptom or sign, they can't do anything about

it.

You will be the one who is most concerned about your mother's comfort and

asking the " little " questions can be very important. Doctors are often

focused on the big picture and can forget to mention remedies or

prophylactics for nausea or fatigue or side effects.

Nurses (or patients who've been through it) are often a good source for

information on comfort and quality of life issues. At the next meeting with

the oncologist, you should definitely ask (being careful to be respectful

and open minded, of course) if your notes are correct or if you misheard or

perhaps someone misspoke. And if your notes are correct, what was the

factor in your mother's treatment and/or response that influenced the change

from a PET scan to a CT scan. It's what I got at that stage from a good

medical center/teaching hospital and I'm fine -- well, we'll get

confirmation on that on Thursday, I hope!

You're a great daughter to be so involved and supportive. Your mom is

lucky!

Hugs,

Liz