Hello, My husband has recently been diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer, at the age of 67. We both feel lost as no-one seems to be talking to us to tell us what is going on. I realise the NHS is under a lot of pressure at the moment, catching up with the backlog post-Covid, but I wondered if anyone has any suggestions of how to best engage with the system during these times.
He was put on hormone therapy immediately following blood test and examination by GP. He has had 3 lots of scans and last week had a biopsy. We have never seen or talked to a consultant, but he's had a couple of short conversations with a urologist hospital doctor by telephone. These have been very unsatisfactory as the doctor is difficult to understand and doesn't seem to make any effort to explain anything. We have a number for the nurse at the Urology Department, but she doesn't always ring back, and again is quite curt and unhelpful. So far, we have got our information from the copy of the urologist doctor's letter to our GP with test results, which we then have to try to decipher to understand what it means.
We are worried that when the biopsy results come in, we will get another unsatisfactory phone call from the same doctor and will be not much the wiser and not in a good position to make decisions about treatment. Ideally, what we would like is to sit down face to face with a consultant who can talk us through the options and answer our questions.
Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you, and wishing all of you good outcomes.