My Hero I lost my dad on March 10, 2012 to Non small cell lung cancer. I am a nurse so I made a lot of the medical decisions on treatments and physicians. My dad battled for 7 miserable months before it took everything away. And as for me, I battled for 7 long months for doctors to do scans, doctors who could care less, doctor's who were residents and were not even in the cancer specialty. Residents who had less patient contact than I had. Half of them didn't know what to do. Most days his pain was uncontrolled and the doctors treated him like a junkee. He was a great man, a Vietnam Vet and a deserving individual of decent medical care. I took my dad to top 10 hospitals in America and he was treated as another cancer patient that was going to die. Duke was a MAJOR disappointment!! Through numerous hospitalizations he never saw the same doctor twice. His oncologist only seen him 2 maybe 3 times and we were told that is just the way they do it. A hospital in Wilmington, NC didn't even have his tumors tested for genetic mutations that could have matched him up to a chemo that had a much higher success rate. This hospital did his left lower lobectomy upon diagnosis. This drug was extending Lung Cancer patients more time with quality of life. My dad was diagnosed in Aug. 2011 and didn't start receiving this targeted therapy until December 2011 when he almost died. THey didn't test my dad for ALK gene because he was a smoker, but turned out he was a match. At this point it was too late. No one once seemed to care about him or my family. This experience has killed any faith I had in my profession. I felt like no one cared because he was a smoker and he fell through the cracks. Doctors didn't follow up with doctors, NONE of the doctors were on the same page, we were told a multitude of different diagnosis and even that his cancer was stable and chemo was working. He died a week later. He suffered a lot. When they finally scanned him for the 2nd time in Feb. (2nd scan since diagnosis even after failed first line treatment.) He was eaten up with cancer. He had bone metastasis, legs, hips, back, ribs and so on. No additional organ at this time. My dad suffered because he now had bone cancer and it is extremely painful and all they could say was he doesn't need this or that or whatever. I am pissed, and bitter and angry. My father was only 62. This type of healthcare is supported in our country. What happened to my father is the standard of care meaning it is acceptable to give a great number of patients mediocre healthcare.
My life is so empty without him. I am only 33 and single mom so my dad was my saving grace. He and my mother. They were married for 35 years. And he was judged for smoking, No one considered his overseas time and the amount of agent orange he was exposed to while protecting our freedom and he worked at DuPont for 30 years.
I will never be the same....