It's been a few years since I've had to deal with HIPAA and all the other stuff you have to deal with anytime you deal with the medical profession in the States. However, I'm not sure I can ever complain about some of that stuff again.
Thirty years ago Aunt had cancer. She received treatment and her family cared for her. However, until a few weeks ago, she didn't know she'd had cancer. Over here it's more than just common, it's practically a tradition to not tell people they have a life-threatening condition such as cancer. The reasoning is that it would just upset them and cause them unnecessary worry. So the doctor will tell the family first and then the family will decide what, if anything, to tell the patient.
Over the years Aunt has had various health issues. For the past year or so she's had some problems that have taken her to several doctors. If she hadn't been so difficult, one treatment for what the doctors thought it was would have at least had them where they might have found the largest tumor. But regardless, for the past 30 years she has been giving incomplete medical histories because she hasn't known her medical history. If she had, she could have told her doctors and they would have probably run different tests and been looking for a possible recurrence. However, since she didn't even know she's had cancer she couldn't even tell them she'd had it.Now it looks like it's too late to treat what they've found. We'll know more after Wednesday morning.
I guess it shouldn't be too surprising that the typical response to bad news is to pretend it doesn't exist. Why else would it be illegal to teach contemporary Lebanese history in school? (But that's another peeve for another post.)
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