I hope so, too, Baylaurel. I am in search of the test or clinical trial that will seek out the errant cancer cells that too often lie dormant in our bodies until years after the discovery of the tumor and are (somehow) activated and come back to kill you. My Iowa City oncologist, upon meeting with me, said I was the healthiest of the 22 women he had seen that day and added, "Cancer isn't going to kill you. Something else will kill you first." He is also the doctor who told me that, 3 years prior, the cut-off for having chemo was 29, not 25. That encouraged me, as I can consider my onco score to be "borderline" with that reasoning. Of course, I've seen the man 3 times. The first time he was (somewhat) dismissive of my concerns and, when I sent him the extensive litany of everything I had endured in the Illinois Quad Cities up to that point in writing, and asked him for a recommendation for a "good" oncologist in the Quad Cities, he said, "Why do you think everyone from the Quad Cities comes here for treatment?" and laughed. He is also the physician who told me, 3 days before I was to be radiated 33 times at Trinity Hospital in Moline, that Iowa City would not have radiated me at all! On my 2nd visit to see him, he said he was going to do a breast exam on my next (3rd) visit, which was in October. I went in October. No exam. In fact, I barely saw him at all. His "minions" did the work-up and the weighing and the blood pressure and he barely stuck his head in the door and said, "Hi" and left. He seems to be a very knowledgeable doctor and I like him well enough (although not as much as Dr. Uyeki in Austin who literally went to war with the hospital for me) and most of the time I tell myself that everything he has said to me, so far, lines up with the idea I originally had that, although I had b.c., my presentation was generally positive and, as Dr. Goswami at Genesis in Davenport said, "You did everything right. You're going to be fine." But then I remind myself that it was that "magical thinking" that kept me from going to Iowa City immediately (or Chicago, where I also have a place) and caused me to accept my Illinois oncologist's dismissive attitude and unwillingness to "go the extra mile" in ordering an oncotype, for instance, or humoring my surgeon and ordering a ki67. "Knowledge is power" and, given my college major, I felt and was powerless to advocate effectively for myself in the early days of treatment. I (sometimes) regret the chemo I didn't have as a result of my first oncologist's horrible attitude, and sometimes---given the side effects from everything that I have tried---I am glad I slipped through that crack. I wish I had listened to my friend's husband---a PhD from the Netherlands who researches in the area of cancers---and gone to a Top Notch hospital that was "rated" as one of the Best in the Nation, because the treatment and compassion shown me at the hospital nearest my home in Illinois fell down on many of those benchmarks. I was fortunate that we winter in Texas and I fell under the care of a doctor who is truly dedicated to saving his patients and spent time with me to hear me out and answer all my questions. It was particularly noteworthy because there was an ice storm that week and most of his regularly scheduled appointments had to be canceled (people in Austin don't know how to drive if there's ice). He spent over an hour with me. We were working on getting him all the information he needed to "go to war" to get my oncotype for hours, as I recounted which facilities I had had mammograms at over the years, and---ever since being treated very poorly at Trinity Hospital in Moline, Illinois during my 2018 biopsy, I had vowed to never go back there (That joke is on me, because it was the hospital I had to go to for the 33 x-ray treatments and my fears turned out to be more than justified.) Like all hospitals or schools, you can have a good doctor in a bad system, or you can have a bad doctor in a good system.

The verdict, for me, is out on the other parts of their system, since I do think that both my radiologist and my surgeon did their best and performed their duties well. (One could ask if the treatment was "cutting edge," since Iowa City did not agree that radiation was even merited). But the oncologist who has held sway there for years is truly a narcissist who, on paper, knows his stuff, but whose system of dealing with patients needs serious adjustment, for the good of both the patients and himself. I am still surprised that he hasn't been sued over situations like the one I only learned about (from my employees) after I had had it with him and his dismissive attitude.