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Doctor's offices and their informational phone calls can really suck.
Took my 93 year old mom for an ultrasound of her kidneys and bladder last week, as her kidney function is reduced. It's most likely for not drinking enough water, but she is stubborn and not terribly agreeable at this point. She lives on her own still, and has no major health issues, and is of very sound mind. She's not been eating enough either, but we ran around quite a bit last week and she seemed fine, for almost 94. I should mention the ultrasound showed her kidneys to look normal, but she does have a 4 cm cyst on one of her ovaries. She has no pain from this.
So the doctor's PA called me yesterday. Jumped right to, "It may be cancer, we need to decide on treatment or hospice..." Mind you, there was no type of warning etc. But as the PA is reading me the notes from the Dr, she is not making any sense. Turns out the Dr uses a "speech to text" software, that jumbles it all up, so the PA sounds nuts as she tries to read this report. Don't forget, my mom has no pain, no signs of cancer, other than this cyst that could have been there for years.
I told the PA to back up, and asked how we went from a simply kidney ultrasound to cancer and hospice. She sort of mumbled some more, so said I wanted to know if the Dr wanted to do more blood work for cancer markers, or to check her kidney function again. She said she'd call me back, which she did a few hours later.
So I unloaded on her. Told it was highly unprofessional to start a conversation with the C word and hospice, for not addressing the original issue, and for sounding totally confused as she tried to make sense of the Dr's notes. She was supper defensive of course, and said it was because the notes were so confusing. I told her she should have sorted out the confusion before calling me.
Can you imagine my elderly mom if they had called HER, and not me? I'm still steamed.
I have not said anything to my mom, or my 2 siblings. My sister would get all worked up about and she is currently living 12 hours away. I don't think this is cancer, but will try to talk to the Dr. next week when we return from a little trip.
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