Life just shucks sometimes. He had been complaining about his shoulder hurting for over two years. The Ortho doc here in south Georgia kept telling him that it was just bursitis (this was diagnosed with a simple, in-office, xray). Since the doc didn't see anything on the x-ray, I guess he automatically assumed that my hubby was in there for drugs (isn't this what they always think?). Because of John's kidney disease, he is medically unable to take any form of aspirin or NSAIDS, or a lot of other medications for that matter. Anyway, to make a long story short, here it is two years and three doctors later, and they finally do an MRI which showed a lesion on the bone in his shoulder close to his neck. Immediately sent for a bone scan from the pelvis up, and guess what? We just found this out last week so we are still in the dark as to the protocol for this.

Needless to say, I am considering a lawsuit against the first doctor who kept putting him off with the bursitis diagnosis. It's not as if my husband didn't have any insurance and couldn't afford the MRI and bone scans at the time. It's just the fact that the doctor "pre-judged" and made his diagnosis on preconceived ideas rather than on medical science. We will wait to see what his new doctors say with regards to treatment now and what would have been or could have been done two years ago. My fear now is that it has probably significantly progressed to a stage where it has metastisized throughout the body and possibly into the brain. I'm not a nurse yet, but I do know that the "B" cancers (bones, brain, breast) are not only the toughest to treat, but also the most painful. I don't want the money from the lawsuit (it's blood money). I want my husband and I want to make these doctors accountable for their blatant disregard for humanity. When you take into consideration the millions of people who suffer in pain, very few in all of the millions really "fake" pain just for painkillers. I know that some do, but doctors shouldn't lump everyone into the same category. I'm really MAD as hell, and I'm not going to let them get away with it!

I'll keep everyone posted.

By the way, my husband is terrified of Oxycontin. He's never taken it, but because of the media madness, he is really afraid of it. He didn't even ask the new doctor about it. The doctor, I guess, just wanted to make the point that he doesn't prescibe it. Neither John nor I would have a clue as to how good it works other than what I have read in the medical literature and on the board here.