Hindsight is 20/20 – Managing Healthcare After Cancer

Hindsight is 20/20 – Managing Healthcare After Cancer

The experience of having cancer has changed my perspective on healthcare, especially my personal approach to managing my health. As a 42-year-old, my previous attitude toward healthcare wasn’t completely lax, but I certainly didn’t have all of my ducks in a row. I did take pretty good care of myself by eating well and exercising. But, I didn’t give much thought to the quality of my primary care doctor since I would frequently forget to schedule an annual physical and primarily went to the doctor when something was wrong, which wasn’t very often.

But when I started experiencing pelvic pain and bloating in the fall of 2021, I quickly learned that having attentive and caring doctors is absolutely essential if you ever go through a medical crisis. I struggled to find a diagnosis for 2.5 months and bounced between 4 different doctors before getting an appointment with my oncologist. I also had 7 different tests, some of which required fasting and sedation. All this to say that it was a time-consuming and exhausting experience. Since cancer is very rare in someone my age, the struggle to find a diagnosis sort of makes sense in hindsight. Cancer just isn’t the first thing that doctors think of when they see someone my age experiencing symptoms that are usually related to GI problems. Check out My Cancer Journey if you’d like to learn more about the symptoms I experienced. But the thing that I still find frustrating is that a couple of the doctors along the way were dismissive, blasé, or unwilling to advocate for me when it was clear that I needed to see an oncologist ASAP. This lack of concern and advocacy was emotionally devastating for me since I had already been through the wringer and was feeling very vulnerable. I knew that I likely had some sort of cancer, but I was told by my gynecologist at the time that there would probably be a month’s wait time to see an oncologist. I was extremely lucky to have a family friend who could get me an appointment to see a gynecologist with Duke. That gynecologist was very compassionate and was then able to get me an appointment with my doctor at Duke Oncology.

Once I found my way into the Duke system, everything became much easier. I found the doctors to be attentive, compassionate, and thorough and their MyChart system made things very seamless and easy to manage. The takeaway from this experience was that having all of your core doctors (in my case primary care, gynecology, and oncology) in 1 system is much easier than having them spread all over the place in different offices. Since Duke is a top-rated oncology program and I was so impressed with the Duke gynecologist that I saw, I decided to switch to a primary care doctor with Duke. I saw my new primary care this spring and I was amazed at how much time she took with me.

So now that I have gone through this life-altering experience I will evaluate my doctors more closely than I did before. Specifically, I will look for doctors who are thorough, good at communicating with patients, empathetic, and dedicated. I found the gynecologist at Duke and my GI provider to be emblematic of these qualities. The Duke gynecologist asked thoughtful questions like “How do you learn best?” or “Do you have any learning disability that would prevent you from understanding what you discuss with the doctor?” I was blown away by these questions because they showed genuine empathy and a concern for the patient as an individual. My GI provider and her assistant, who were in regular communication with me as we navigated our way through my concerning symptoms, really cared about my well-being and went above and beyond to make sure that I received all of the tests necessary to narrow down the possible diagnoses. I am forever grateful to the people who helped me along the way.