Class Action "That's funny HAHA not funny HEHE." - Jona Vark
We met with the Oncologist, Dr. Satay. Tami, a nurse practitioner and close friend of the family, joined my parents for the meeting. We arrived at Compassionate Care Cancer Center, on the 3rd floor of a 4 story building; an extension of the Fountain Valley Regional Hospital. I checked in with the ‘cuter one’ of the two 'Witch Hazel' receptionists. I quickly realized Compassionate Care was a misnomer. It would be more appropriately named Quickly Pay and Have a Seat Cancer Center.
My name was called and my entourage followed. After the routine tests, we were left to wait 30 minutes in the examination room. We used this time as a brainstorming session and assigned different note taking responsibilities. Then the unusual came. We were brought into the Oncologist's personal office. He only had 2 chairs and kindly grabbed a third. I could sense that he felt clouded by our presence, especially when he learned of Tami's 30 years in the medical field. Of a shorter stature, he had a mild Indian accent, but appeared to be of Persian decent. He asked me for the succession of events that led to the diagnosis. He then asked me what I knew of the condition. I told him that I knew it was rare, slow growing, and affected the lining of blood vessels. I was looking through the handout Dr. Gee had given me.
“Can I see those?” Asked Dr. Satay. I handed him the packet. “You have more information than I do.” That was great news. He told us that he had also never heard of this condition: that it was rare, afflicted about 200 people in the U.S. and was a slow growing type of cancer. We had already seen the article on Wikipedia, I hoped he had more to tell us other than that!
"You actually have H.E.H.E. it's Hepatic Epithelioid Hemangio Endothelioma…or hee-hee." Perhaps this would be humorous at a medical nerd convention, but it lacks humor and meaning for the layman, especially the afflicted. "That's funny Haha, not funny Hehe," I replied.
I asked how bad it had afflicted my liver. He asked me if I had a copy of the CT scan. I was surprised he wasn’t sent a copy, let alone reviewed them. He was told of my condition by my PCP on Monday. Fortunately, I had picked up a copy 2 days prior from the film department at Los Alamitos. I searched through my briefcase. “Unfortunately, I think I left it in my computer. I can get it to you by this evening if you want.”
“Just drop it off tomorrow. I can’t tell you much about anything until I take a look at these slides. I will contact Dr. Chow about this. He is a sarcoma specialist and I know him very well. The type of cancer you have is similar to a sarcoma. We will present the case to the tumor board next Tuesday and I’ll have more information for you next time we meet. I’ll set up an appointment for next Thursday.”
This was quite a disappointing consult. Someone should consider litigation for false advertising: Compassionate Cancer Care. Did I hear class action?