As of Sunday 3rd March, I have recently been diagnosed with prostate cancer:
* PSA: 8.9
* Likart: 5
* 7 - 4+3
* T2a, NO, MO.
Initially I had been quite relaxed about everything, not angry, frustrated, guilty, nor even depressed. I had been totally compartmentalising everything, and to be honest... being like an ostrich, simply as an effective coping mechanism.
I'd been told by specialists that rather than go ahead with talking about treatment I needed to have a PSMA PET Scan.
This was only 1-day after having my diagnosis that I looked at going private (advantage of work scheme) simply to speed up the whole process,, but unfortunately, they put lots of barriers in front of me before they could honour any claim.
They wouldn't accept my referral letter from the NHS because they weren't one of their own recommended consultant. The NHS couldn't believe this, saying they'd referred 100s of people for private care before.
Then private care, wanted a medical statement from my GP that this wasn't an ongoing issue, as I'd only been paying into the scheme for slightly less than 2-years (2-years being their threshold). After many protestations from myself they relented on this, simply because I argued that I'd already signed a statement telling them of my pre-existing conditions and giving them permission to speak with my GP; which they excluded nearly every part of my body apart from cancer treatment.
Gave me a list of their recommended consultants, that I had to choose from, but first had to find one that would be able to offer a timely appointment before my NHS appointment came in, for which I had to travel outside my area to keep.
Their own consultant simply did what I thought the'd do... invite me in, introduce themselves, read the NHS referral letter and transpose the findings and recommendations onto their own referral letter... a complete waste of time.
I then sent this into the private health department who said it wasn't good enough because I was after a PSMA PET scan, but the consultant had only written 'PET Scan'.
So I got in touch with the consultant, they quickly changed it, then I submitted the correct referral letter onto the private health provider.
After nearly a week of me jumping through their hoops, they then said that one of my results were 0.1 below their thresholds for referral, so they would not sign it off.
I then got back in touch with the NHS, who were embarrassed to tell me that they'd not been in touch with the specialist department to start the process of booking my scan because they knew I was trying to go private (not their fault, and totally understandable). However, this would mean they'd have to start the whole process again; thereby delaying, my scan and subsequent treatment even more.
I know mine is a totally isolated incident, but almost a week later, and I've only now started to come down from my frustration and anger, at a time when I really needed to have as little stress as possible after having a life-changing cancer diagnosis... definitely not ideal.
The wonderful NHS staff (especially the reception staff) probably think I'm a troublesome and needy patient, even though I've simply been trying to keep them in the loop and liaising with them.
