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- Aug 25, 2010
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Just curious what others think... There is a fair amount of ranting here so sorry in advance for the long winded rant.
Do referal vets in a specialty hopsital have a duty to provide reports of the care they provided directly to the client or only to the referring veterinarian?
As many of you know Colby has osteosarcoma and is seeing an internist for chemotherapy. We've been having issues with his WBC counts rebounding slowly. It took 4 weeks between first round of carboplatin before we could start the second round chemo with doxorubicin, but with an extra week his WBCs rebounded nicely to above where he was when he started chemo. He was 5.2 in Dec when diagnosed. After first round of chemo at 3rd week he was 3.2, but waiting an additional week, and he was up over 7. I know that's still low, but it was a nice jump considering the circumstances.
For the third round at 3 weeks they were low again, but the hospital wouldn't share the numbers with us only denied chemo that week and popped us with 100 "recheck fee." Now here we are at 4 weeks they're still borderline low, but we haven't been given any data.
Today, the internist with the horrible personality tells my husband that we should probably stop chemo if he continues to have issues with WBC counts rebounding because it's pointless to continue. While I understand that dragging the chemo rounds out can lower the efficacy, I'm not certain that 4 weeks is too long. Specifically because the good doctor at that practice told us it was fine as long as we didn't push it to 5 or 6 weeks.
I'm livid because she apparently hasn't even considered the idea that maybe Colby is just sensitive to the doxorubicin, and maybe we should just do carboplatin at 4 week intervals. I wasn't able to go to his appointment this morning so I didn't get to ask her myself. My poor husband gets so nervous about chemotherapy in general that he was shell shocked when she said it was time to quit.
What really irritates me is that during his treatment, it's been like pulling teeth to get his WBC counts out of these people and dosage information. It's like requesting top secret information to get access to his CBC reports which I'm paying 100 bucks a pop for!!! The tech actually told me last time I was in there that "his white blood cell count was nothing I needed to concern myself with..." They don't tell us anything just take our dog to the back and bring him back out with a nice fat bill. For all I know they're back there doing the hokey pokey with him. /end rant
I believe in taking an active roll in my pet's care. Am I being unreasonable for wanting all the information? or is the clinic failing me in some way by not providing the full picture of my pet's healthcare?
Do referal vets in a specialty hopsital have a duty to provide reports of the care they provided directly to the client or only to the referring veterinarian?
As many of you know Colby has osteosarcoma and is seeing an internist for chemotherapy. We've been having issues with his WBC counts rebounding slowly. It took 4 weeks between first round of carboplatin before we could start the second round chemo with doxorubicin, but with an extra week his WBCs rebounded nicely to above where he was when he started chemo. He was 5.2 in Dec when diagnosed. After first round of chemo at 3rd week he was 3.2, but waiting an additional week, and he was up over 7. I know that's still low, but it was a nice jump considering the circumstances.
For the third round at 3 weeks they were low again, but the hospital wouldn't share the numbers with us only denied chemo that week and popped us with 100 "recheck fee." Now here we are at 4 weeks they're still borderline low, but we haven't been given any data.
Today, the internist with the horrible personality tells my husband that we should probably stop chemo if he continues to have issues with WBC counts rebounding because it's pointless to continue. While I understand that dragging the chemo rounds out can lower the efficacy, I'm not certain that 4 weeks is too long. Specifically because the good doctor at that practice told us it was fine as long as we didn't push it to 5 or 6 weeks.
I'm livid because she apparently hasn't even considered the idea that maybe Colby is just sensitive to the doxorubicin, and maybe we should just do carboplatin at 4 week intervals. I wasn't able to go to his appointment this morning so I didn't get to ask her myself. My poor husband gets so nervous about chemotherapy in general that he was shell shocked when she said it was time to quit.
What really irritates me is that during his treatment, it's been like pulling teeth to get his WBC counts out of these people and dosage information. It's like requesting top secret information to get access to his CBC reports which I'm paying 100 bucks a pop for!!! The tech actually told me last time I was in there that "his white blood cell count was nothing I needed to concern myself with..." They don't tell us anything just take our dog to the back and bring him back out with a nice fat bill. For all I know they're back there doing the hokey pokey with him. /end rant
I believe in taking an active roll in my pet's care. Am I being unreasonable for wanting all the information? or is the clinic failing me in some way by not providing the full picture of my pet's healthcare?