Thursday
Having been given the phone number of the radiotherapist’s secretary, I phoned her on Thursday, this number turned out to be at St. Lukes Hospital in Guildford. She had apparently no record of me on her system. I pointed out that a letter had been written to the oncologist from the radiotherapist and the office phone number was on the top. Hence ringing and speaking to her, she then asked what hospital I had seen the oncologist in. She said that the radiotherapist would be in on Friday and she would talk to her then.

Monday
I left it until Monday and phoned the secretary again. She had spoken to the radiotherapist, I assume, but still denied having any record of me, then explained that if a doctor had clinics in four hospitals, that doctor would have a secretary in each one. How’s that for bad system communication. But she did then give me the number of the office at St. Peters Hospital. I rang and got through to the oncology office, at St. Peters. Funny, I thought that I was ringing the radiotherapy office. This secretary said that she would get my hospital notes and then ring me back.

She rang back later in the afternoon and gave me some strange explanation. All the letters had been written and an appointment should have been made, the secretary of the oncologist had now left the hospital. Things then had not been followed up (bad communication) again. Anyway she had now booked me an appointment to see the radiotherapist’s registrar on Tuesday afternoon i.e. yesterday.

Tuesday
The appointment to see the radiotherapist’s registrar was at 2:45, I was not called until 3:50. Things like that don’t bode to well with me; therefore I was not in too good a mood when I went in. We discussed radiotherapy which had not been an option when I spoke to the oncologist. He had said that he did not want to do it as the area to be treated had the delicate new joint and radiotherapy could damage to it, causing failure at a later date. The registrar told me that the oncologist was a medical oncologist and the radiotherapist was a clinical oncologist. The former only does chemotherapy the later does both chemotherapy and radiotherapy. She said that the oncologist who had said that he wanted to do chemotherapy and did not want to do radiotherapy was not qualified to do so. We finished the appointment and booked another for two weeks.

Wednesday
First thing I rang and left a message for Lynn the Specialist Nurse. She rang back later and we had a long talk. Agreeing that chemotherapy was not in question at this point, just the radiotherapy. She said that it was important to get the chemotherapy moving quickly, as it would last for twelve weeks. The radiotherapy, if I decided to take it, would only be for five weeks and so I still had another five weeks to decide to go ahead. She has booked me an appointment to see the Radiotherapy Consultant on Friday morning to arrange the start of chemotherapy and to discuss further the radiotherapy. A short while later the secretary rang and confirmed the appointment.