Good afternoon all,
I wanted to share my story about my fiance and ask for advice about the apparent level of care he is receiving from his doctors, because I am very skeptical.
My fiance was diagnosed with Stage I stomach cancer about six weeks ago. He is only 22 years old. His doctors were extremely confident that he had a higher than 90% chance of success. They said based on his age and overall good health, he would not need surgery -- chemo alone was likely to cure his cancer. I was a little skeptical, since everything I read seemed to indicate that surgery was the best way to cure cancer -- even Stage I.
They performed chemo, but had some problems with low blood cell count, so they decided to do a blood transfusion. Well, guess what? They put the WRONG BLOOD TYPE in his body and he went into shock. They managed to solve the problem right away, but I was absolutely appalled that they could let this happen.
To make things worse, after three weeks of chemo, they did more tests and announced that the chemo was not working at all. They performed lab tests of other types of chemos on some sample material that they have removed from his body, but they said that none of the chemos was working very well. So they decided to do surgery. The young doctor who initially claimed chemo alone would be fine was asked by the more experienced doctors to not treat my fiance anymore -- which raised big red flags to me.
The first surgery was a 10-hour surgery. They removed 5cm of his stomach and 2 of his lymph nodes. They brought in a specialist to do a second 2-hour surgery to remove the cancer that had grown a little too close to his liver. Both sets of surgeons said that they had removed 100% of the cancer in his body and were very confident in his full cure and recovery.
However, just two weeks ago and one week after his surgeries, they went in him with a fiber optic camera, saw new growth, and removed it. Their lab results showed that the cancer had come back and was now Stage III.
They are now telling us that he has a less than 3% chance of survival. They say that he is pretty much out of options. The chemo didn't work before, and surgery is not an option anymore. Radiation is risky on the areas that are weak, but they have decided to do it anyway, but they don't expect much of a chance of success at all.
I'm bewildered by all of this. I fail to see how in one week we can go from Stage I 90+% survival rate, all the cancer removed from his body, to Stage III 3% survival rate. I know stomach cancer is extremely aggressive, but we are just in shock and are unsure if my fiance has suffered from poor treatment at the hands of his doctors, or what. We are VERY skeptical about his level of care.
To make things more difficult, I am American and he is Dutch and is being treated in Holland. I don't know anything about Dutch medicine and though I've heard it's quite good, everything my fiance has gone through has me absolutely terrified that he is not receiving the best level of care.
I just wondered if anyone had any advice for me? Has anyone had similar experience with stomach cancer? Are their claims that he can no longer be treated by surgery and chemo realistic, or did they just give up too fast?
Should I strongly urge that he find new doctors? Should I recommend he come here? I've hinted at MD Anderson, since I live in Texas, but am unsure if his insurance will work in the USA.
Please help -- we are bewildered and absolutely terrified. He's so young.