Switch!!!!! I had a great oncologist who believed in me. I heard she left her previous group because she felt the other doctors weren't compassionate to the patients.
My doctor was so compassionate, in fact, nothing prepared me for the oncologists and researchers I encountered at conferences I attended. My cancer type/subtype was a "bad actor" "very aggressive" "highly lethal" "has no good treatment" etc. I left one conference room in tears. That lecture was NOT directed at medical students or journalists. The attendees were all patients and their families. A perfect example of insensivity bordering on cruelty. Physicians, heal thyself! Why not instead discuss the wisdom of research funding for cell-specific treatments? The way those doctors talked, they might as well have sold booth space to undertakers and estate lawyers.
Fast forward: Despite my official 30 percent survival rate (or 15 percent if you factor in my cell subtype) not only am I alive six years after surgery, I have been in remission ever since first-line chemo ended in February 2002. And while I think I owe my life to my doctor's surgical skills and pure dumb luck rather than anyone's positive attitude, I will never forget the hope my oncologist gave me in my darkest hours.
If I've learned one thing about cancer in the last six years, it's that this disease is unpredictable. Try to keep that in mind if you're a fellow member of the bad-stat club. I know a woman who had the EXACT same cancer type and subtype that I had. The difference between us was that she was a stage II and I was a stage III. Despite her earlier stage, she survived just two years, and here I still stand.