one more thought re RAI and kids...a bit OT though

[Guest guest]

Hi everyone,

First, Tosha I'm so glad you made your decision as you did. But it has

brought to mind something that forever stamped on my brain a certain

reaction of caution to the medical world, so I thought I'd share that little

story here.

When I was a teen, I had a best friend. We did all the usual best friend

stuff, then one day she was gone. Her parents cried and told me she'd died.

Well, I finally found out the story: She had been diagnosed with a malignant

uterine tumor and " the doctors " made the decision that she should go and

have surgery, an immediate total hysterectomy. Now, this girl was about 15

at the time. But the choice was made to lie to her. Not to tell her she had

cancer. Not to tell her she was going to have surgery, but simply to tell

her she was going to the hospital for a " test " . Her parents went along with

this...and my friend died on the operating table. They said her body just

went into shock.

Now, this may be a weird story. I was too young, too emotional to ask

questions and her parents (she was an only child) were too devastated to

approach anyway. But I formed my own theory when I knew the bare bones of

the facts: My friend was violated by those she trusted. She was lied to by

her parents and the doctors, she wasn't educated about what was going on in

her body in any way. So, when the " test " turned out to be invasive surgery,

something in her psyche couldn't assimilate that event, and it caused the

'shock' and her subsequent death.

There, in this story (which I hadn't thought about in years) I think lies

one of the seeds of my mistrust for doctors and my realization that no

matter what age we are, we MUST understand all the facts about our medical

options, we MUST make an informed decision, and that nobody else can decree

that something be done to us without first laying the ground work for our

acceptance of it.

I know this is contradicted by what happens in emergencies, but this wasn't

an emergency, and my friend was violated in the most basic way. This is also

why I react so strongly when someone writes the group about a doctor forcing

a decision on them to do RAI immediately, without giving them time to do

research on whether they want to. Or when doctors blithely push irreversible

treatments like RAI on children too young to understand what's being done to

them. It would be different if there weren't other less invasive and

permanent options, but there ARE. It would be different if there wasn't

irrefutable evidence that RAI can cause problems but there IS. Look at what

Hell ph is going through right now! Look at Chie's last post...

I know I am ranting. Sorry about that. I just feel like I've reached the

bursting point on this subject, and I'm not even one of the 'victims'!

Terry