In the morning, a group of doctors came to see me, a lung specialist among them. She bluntly advised that, the CT Scan showed a tumor in my left lung, and the fluid in the lung was my body's reaction to it. When asked, she speculated that the growth was probably cancerous, but she could not say without histogram investigation. She also indicated that, if it were cancer, the only treatment available was chemotherapy, since the fluid was saturated by the cancer cells, ready to invade the rest of the body.
I can't explain the shock I felt. I did not feel sick at all, when did this happen? I felt young and strong, and could not believe that my days on earth were numbered. Until it was to be proven, I decided to keep the information to ourselves (Al and I), and not to alarm the children. It was my daughter Ayse’s tenure year; she needed to focus on her work, and not to be distracted. I even thought after returning to Hamilton to stay with a friend during the diagnosis process. But Al could not carry the burden of such magnitude, and sat down to share it with everybody!
That day was like a dream (nightmare) when my life turned upside down, and I did not know what to think. However, I took stock of my life and decided that it had been great so far. I had always been surrounded by love and did whatever I wanted. I have no regrets, and considered myself lucky. It gave me a will to fight this calamity to the end, so there!
That evening, one of the cardiologist declared that he wanted to drain the fluid in my heart, since it was not draining by itself. So, he inserted another tube to my chest and completed the procedure in a few minutes. Then I felt my heart beating like crazy, and told the doctor that it gave me palpitations. He laughed, saying that I just started feeling the beating of my heart, which had been buried in fluid until now. Wow! Talk about ignorance.
As it turned out, I could have died while walking up and down the stairs and hills from cardiac arrest, or from the blood clot, if it had not been disbursed into smaller parts in my lung. Lucky or what.
NEXT FEW DAYS
Al rented a car, and started spending all his time with me during the day. The doctors were adamant that I needed to rest under supervision, until all the fluid was drained from my lung. Yea, but a night at Intensive Care Unit costs 2,200 Euros, who is going to pay for this? When I asked, the doctors dismissed the concern. They indicated that it was their responsibility to give me the best care and prevent any adverse effect of being discharged prematurely. Also, there were organizations who helped the needy. No need to worry. Yea, right!
DEALING WITH FAMILY DOCTOR IN HAMILTON
They said I should make arrangements to get a hospital in Canada to admit me as soon as possible. So thinking of knowing the Canadian system, we thought the best way to ensure it was to call Dr Au, and get her work on our behalf. The conversation with her assistant was the second shock we had to endure. Dr Au did not have hospital admittance priliviledges, there was nothing she could do for me. End of story.
My curse for Dr Au to be in a situation where she would feel utterly helpless and alone in a foreign country some day!
Thank God for Internet. Al looked up for hospitals in Hamilton with thorax specialists, and found the telephone number for St Joe’s Hospital. The person who answered instructed Al to take me to the emergency immediately, and they would take it from there. Instant relief. Could not that damned assistant say this to Al, instead of dismissing him with not even a kind word. What do they teach these young physicians about humanity. Being a doctor is a calling, to serve other people. I come from a family of doctors, my grand father, my father, my brother, uncle, cousins. Never observed such utter disinterest about the patient, who is apparently only seen as dollar signs. The arrogance of the new generation of doctors is incredible. After returning to Hamilton, I immediately changed my family doctor, and talked to a few in the process. Afterwards, I learned from a professor at the Calgary University that the new doctors were not doing any rotation among the different clinics, so know nothing. What do they really learn? To push drugs, without really investigating the real causes of diabetes, high blood pressure etc. They prescribe tests, and give drugs. Period. No physical examination, listening to the heart/lungs etc. They seem to be afraid of catching a disease by touch. When we first met Dr Au, Al had asked about that, indicating that our previous doctor, Marc Langille of Ottawa, used to examine our bodies during the yearly physicals. Dr Au’s response: “what did he find?”. There was nothing to find at the time, but how did she propose to find anything if she did not look? I should have found somebody else at that instant, maybe I would have a better chance with the cancer. But I was invincible at the time.
I have another beef with Dr Au. Both my daughter Ayse and I needed a dermatologist, but she postponed referring us a year. Mine was a rash on my leg, so maybe not very important, but hers was a cyst on her back, around her shoulder blade. Apparently Dr Au looked at it, and declared that things like that were tricky, and she would not touch it. OK, send her to somebody who can. No, not until I put my foot down after a year, and got her to find a specialist. As soon as the doctor looked at Ayse’s cyst, she operated it out, saying that it was about to burst. Go figure!
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