Your Friendly Family Oncologist

Why in the hell would I go see an Oncologist? Just because I was diagnosed with terminal cancer? Why would anyone go see a cancer doctor? They are completely worthless to me because the only things they have to offer are:
1. Poison? Nah, I'll pass. I saw the Snow White movie a long time ago. Not in to poison. It makes you very sick, you quit breathing, you're weak and gray and throwing up all the time. Maybe you'll survive it and slowly over the course of a year or so get better and be able to play and have fun again. Nope. Don't like poison. What else you got doctor?
Oh I know, I know!
2. A referral to a radiator (one who irradiates your body with other, guess what?, toxic rays!) Yup, now THAT sounds like a great plan. You don't feel anything. It's just a very high dollar big buzzing box. Oh yeah, I did that and after 8 sessions had 2nd degree burns all inside my mouth and throat. Then they were going to put in a stomach tube. I remember the first little Indian woman oncologist with the unpronounceable name (a 'highly regarded oncologist). She stood there crunching a piece of hard candy, spent 5 minutes in the room and billed me for $600. I did the math. There are 12, 5 minute periods in an hour, so 12 x $600/hour is $7200/hour. Pretty good wages! First thing she was going to do was put a feeding tube IN MY BODY because I probably wouldn't be able to eat or swallow after she got done with me. That is FUCKED up, in case you didn't notice. These people are insane.

OK, radiation, fucks up your immune system. Not good when you're trying to fight off cancer, that's for sure. It'll shrink tumors if it's well targeted so I guess if the tumor was choking off your esophagus or something that might make sense for awhile to give you some additional time to cure yourself with HEALTHY things. (did you Oncologists ever consider helping a PATIENT with a DISEASE get HEALTHY instead of sicker? Now there's a novel approach. I'll pass on radiation as well. Remember class, ONCOLOGISTS can't even DO radiation. They have to refer you to some person who can. So even if you WANT radiation, you still have no reason to go to an ONCOLOGIST. And what is an oncologist again? Oh, yeah! A CANCER doctor. We still have not come up with a reason for a CANCER patient to go see a CANCER doctor! How interesting.

Ah, but CANCER doctors still have one final tool up their sleeve! They can REFER you to a SURGEON so you can have the cancer surgically removed. Again, they can't do it themselves but through the power of their almighty prescription pad, they can send you to a surgeon to whack that bad boy out of there. In my case the surgeon (working with the CANCER doctor) decided to whack open my neck and remove every lymph node in there, about 75 of them I'm told. This is called radical neck surgery. They generally cut the carotid artery (they said you have another one and one is probably good enough) in the process and dig around through your neck muscles and basically fuck you up. This MAY leave you with the inability to control the facial muscles on that side AND you may not be able to use your arm very well (That would be my right arm, the one I use all the time). So THAT's fucked up. I said 'No' to that one too.

OK. To recap, an oncologist is a cancer doctor, someone who specializes in the treatment of cancer (which I supposedly have, like in spades). The only thing an oncologist can do is 1. either REFER you to someone else to FUCK you up, OR they can poison you themselves without outside assistance. They don't know anything about how to enhance your immune system or help you look at the emotional underpinnings of cancer or do ANYTHING to help you get healthier. They can't help you with those things.

It would be really nice to talk to someone who is a specialist in my 'disease' who could actually do me some good, help me get healthier, talk with me about my treatment options, but no, you can't go see a cancer doctor because they don't KNOW SHIT about CANCER treatment. It is an interesting world...