Montreal

I arrived on thursday March 9th and could not reach Dr. Lam, my family doctor on the phone until monday (4 days later).  I had difficulty breathing and was feeling terrible but used that time to go through three months of accumulated mail. When he finally did return my call, all he had to say was to suggest I should go to an emergency ward. We have universal free medical services in Canada but the delays are very bad.

On March 14th, I was finally admitted in the St-Luc Hospital, which, along with the Notre-Dame and Hôtel-Dieu hospitals, is part of the Montreal University Hospital (CHUM). They kept me a week to carry out an impressive battery of tests of which a PET scan carried out at the Hôtel-Dieu hospital. Then, I had to wait two weeks before meeting a pneumologist, Dr. Matar, who had not yet received the PET scan results from the Hôtel-Dieu hospital when he saw me on April 4th. We hah to wait a few minutes before getting that report, urgently faxed from the Hôtel-Dieu. After reading it, Dr. Matar announced that the tests indicated cancer in both lungs and in the central ganglia. That very severe diagnosis was confirmed by a bronchosopic wash taken by Dr. Mayer, that revealed cancerous cells in my right lung.

Unfortunately the request for an appointment with an oncologist was put in my file instead of being dent to the Notre-Dame hospital where the oncology department is located. After two weeks waiting and I forget how many attempts to get news by telephone I was told that the request for an appointment could not be found. I had to ring bells, wave flags and make myself obnoxious to get things moving again. If I had not done so my file would still be forgotten in the archives of St-Luc hospital.

Five weeks after the diagnostic condemnig me to a probable survival measurable in months, I finally met, on May 11th, an oncologist, Dr Devaux, who ordered other tests and a biopsy to check if the ganglia behind my sternum were indeed cancerous.

Then, I had to wait four weeks for the biopsy to be taken by Dr. Ferraro on June 9th at the Notre-Dame hospital. This was a minor operation under general anaesthesia and I was able to go back home the same day. I then had to wait almost four weeks more before meeting Dr. Ferraro again on July 4th who told me that the cancer had not reached the ganglia but that my lungs had been so badly damaged by pulmonary fibrosis and emphysema that the elimination of the cancer by surgery was not practicable.

To save time, I carried my case file myself the same day to the Notre-Dame hospital's radiology department and was advised a week later that a scan would be taken on July 18th in order to so plan an appropriate radiotherapy for my case. On the 18th I met Dr. Coulombe who informed me she would discuss my case on the 24th at a meeting with other specialists. As far as I know, this was the first such face to face meeting in more than four months since my admission into the system. Following that meeting "they" decided that I would undergo a second bronchoscopy, this one including a biopsy to be done on July 25th by Dr. Gagnon.

After being examined by six specialists during the last five months, I still did not have a clear diagnostic let alone a prognosis about the future. When I complained about this uncertainty and about not being told what was going on, I was assured with the overbearing authority of specialist doctors that all was well in the best of worlds. All might have been well for the system but not for my morale. I therefore asked for an antidepressant and obtained an appointment  for July 25th with Dr. Quenneville who could prescribe one. I got there an hour ahead of time on the 25th after my second bronchoscopy. Two hours later a clerc told me that Dr. Quenneville was away on vacations and I would have to wait till the 29th of August to see him!

Two weeks later, on August 7th, I met Dr. Coulombe again who explained that the ganglion biopsy taken by Dr. Gagnon was negative like the one taken by scalpel by Dr. Ferraro. The middle lobe wash was also negative but the upper lobe wash found some "suspect" cells that could have come from the big nodule that had been declared cancerous initially. We would now take a third biopsy to verify that diagnostic. A trans-thoracic biopsy was taken under local anaesthasia on August 21st by Dr.Chalaoui who inserted a hollow needle directly into what was supposed to be my cancer.

I got the good news on September 5th. No cancerous cells were found! It was only a large fibrosis nodule and the previous tests had been "false positives". However, I was not yet out of the woods for it had grown in the last six months and fibrosis and enphysema had reduced my respiratory capacity to 30% of what it should be.

... to be followed ...