New radiation therapy scheduled

The past week has been one of those weeks with many disappointments. I won't elaborate on everything but I have selected a few highlights to illustrate where I am at. Whilst crucial decisions are to be made I can only conclude that the general attitude of my physicians, and the pace at which they work, is not sufficient to please me. I have been waiting for my scan which they will be using to make a decision about my head. They have kept me waiting 4 weeks already. On the 30th they will decide what to do. In the meantime a request has been filed for radiation therapy on my shoulder which has been very painful since the end of November. (Just to give you an indication how fast they work). I had requested to go to the AVL hospital for radiation as my experience in the VU hospital is abominable. My own radiologist in the AVL was on a sabbatical until Christmas, so Lips asked me if I did not mind having my radiation therapy in the VU hospital in order to speed things up. Tuesday I went in to get marked. Most people don't know that this happens so I thought I would share it with you. The reddish lines in the picture are henna tattoos. They show a gridline so that they know exactly which part to radiate. This is precision work. What you see here is how precise the radiologists in the VU hospital are. There are two parallel lines. One of which has a circle around it. This is to indicate which line is the main line. Right next to it, there is a line which they did not need. It was the previous main line. Well, they are off by a few centimeters. More to the left you see a faded line...well oops...that one was wrong!

They were trying to get both my right shoulder and my ribs on the left into one scan. They actually scanned me first to come to the conclusion that they could not get both parts in and had to redo it in two new scans. That is one scan too many for me (the first one). I can not get my head around mistakes like these. When I ask for scans when I am sure that something is going on in my body they refuse because of the amount of radiation, but when the f*** up nobody seems to care. Anyway my next radiation therapy is on Friday at 15.05 and I feel like I have been set back by a year emotionally. A new area has been found on my right arm. And I keep hearing the doctors tell me they don't need to scan my extremities because cancer of the Thyroid does not spread there of on your head. Well guess what?

All in all I am not too satisfied with the attitude of my doctors. More and more I feel like my recovery is such a suprise to me that apathy has hit them. I am not supposed to be walking around, let alone look so healthy. They had expected that I would be 6 ft under by now. So...why bother.

I have taken my irritation and informed my GP who by the way, confirmed that the radio therapy department is a mess in the VU hospital. I will be going back to Dr. Luykx, the oncologist in Hilversum for an assesment of my treatment. Perhaps it's time for treatment in a new hospital.