I Need To Know

An excerpt from my very first blog post…

“I believe the medical profession and their patients live in alternate universes in terms of their conceptions and experiences of the passage of time. For a new cancer patient, the diagnostic process can’t ever move too fast; we want answers and we want them today, so let’s get on with it and complete all those scans etc. now. Unfortunately, for most of us it doesn’t work that way. Procedures and tests have to be scheduled in busy medical centers and insurance companies have to be contacted for authorizations. For the medical profession, the elapse of a week or so between major diagnostic events, plus a few more days before the results come in, is but a brief and inconsequential moment in time. To the scared patient (and his family) this is an eternity.

On one occasion during this time of what seemed to me to be glacial diagnostic work, I made the mistake of voicing my feelings to the clinic folks. Two rather blunt responses were elicited. One, if I thought I could get things done quicker elsewhere I was welcome to do that. Two, it won’t really matter if a few more diagnostic weeks elapse before starting treatment because it either works or it doesn’t.

I must confess to having said such things to pushy clients in the course of a busy law practice, and I now deeply regret my insensitivity.”

I’ll sign off for today with an ode to the oncologists who make us wait, to the tune of “I Need to Know” from Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers… Well talk on the street
Says you might go so slow
Some good friends of mine
Say their report’s in your Black Hole

I need to know, I need to know
If you think I’m gonna leave
Then you better say so
I need to know, I need to know
‘Cause I don't know how long I can hold on
When you're making me wait, when you're leavin' me long
I need to know

Who would've thought that
I'd fall for these fries
All of a sudden
It's C on the outside

I need to know, I need to know
If you think I’m gonna leave
Then you better say so
I need to know, I need to know
‘Cause I don't know how long I can hold on
When you're making me wait, when you're leavin' me long
I need to know

I need to know, I need to know
If you think I’m gonna leave
Then you better say so
I need to know, I need to know
‘Cause I don't know how long I can hold on
When you're making me wait, when you're leavin’ me long
I need to know

I need to know
I need to know
M.D., I need to know