When surgery is being recommended, there are several questions you may want to ask. Here are 8 questions covering such topics as alternatives to surgery, ways to avoid medical errors, recovery from surgery and participating in your treatment plan. Being an empowered patient means you ask a lot of questions, and keep asking until you feel comfortable with all of the answers.
Andi is child number ten in a family of eight brothers and two sisters. She is not married. In September 2004, at the age of forty-eight, Andi found a lump in her left breast. A lumpectomy was done by a surgeon in a hospital in Jakarta, Indonesia. She then came to Penang to undergo eight cycles of chemotherapy. After this treatment, Andi was asked to go for radiotherapy besides taking tamoxifen. She declined both and came to see us on 15 March. On the day of her visit, she presented with bloatedness of her stomach and numbness of both feet.
This is the beginning of a 3 part series discussing the 3 main asbestos cancers; also known as mesothelioma. The first part will be on one of the most common of the three types of mesothelioma: pleura mesothelioma, asbestos cancer around the lining of the lungs.
Pleura mesothelioma is cancer of the membrane covering the lungs. Symptoms of pleural mesothelioma can include a shortness of breath, wheezing, fatigue, abdominal swelling, bowel obstruction, blood clotting abnormalities, trouble swallowing, and a swollen neck and face.