Follow Up with Dr. Cameron

On December 21 we went for our 2 week follow-up visit with Dr. Cameron. My mother had bought him a scarf and she had bought a pen for Dr. Meneshian (Dr. Cameron's fellow). Grace had gone through a fair amount of pain buying and returning things and working with my Mom over the phone from the mall while they finalized what to get.

We arrived at 1pm and ended up waiting 2 hours to see him. We realized that Dr. Cameron has the following brilliant (for him) scheduling strategy: Tell all patients to arrive at exactly the same time (1pm) and then it's first come first serve to see him. I suspect he does this so that he maximizes the use of his time and because he can (he is one of the best surgeons in the world). I doubt any of his patients complain. He came in and looked at my mother's incision and said: "Your incision looks great - you must have had an excellent surgeon". I bet he says that to all his patients :->.

We asked him about his recommendation for adjuvant therapy and he confirmed what we were thinking. He mentioned that the two "bright spots" in this area are Dr. Picozzi's Virginia Mason Protocol and Dan Laheru's vaccine. He had mentioned though that the VMP was very toxic and that he wouldn't hesitate to send somebody to Seattle if they were in their 50s. But he said we should definitely still see Dr. Picozzi since I told him we already had an appointment lined up. My Mom, who has been really scared of chemotherapy and radiation has clung to those words in defense and has kept repeating that the VMP is for younger people. We've asked her to keep an open mind and wait to talk to Dr. Picozzi.

Next came the all important gift giving portion of the visit. My mother gave Dr. Cameron the gift and asked him to give the pen to Dr. Meneshian. She was really worried because she originally got the pen for Dr. Cameron and the scarf for Dr. Meneshian. But my father remembered that Dr. Cameron already had a really fancy nice pen so she decided to switch them. However, the pen was more expensive than the scarf and my mother was really worried for the next few days that somehow Dr. Cameron would figure it out and get upset. My mother tends to worry a lot about these kinds of things.

In retrospect, we're really thankful that we were able to have Dr. Cameron handle my mother's Whipple procedure. This is probably among the most difficult procedures and Dr. Cameron has done more of these than anybody alive. He was chief of surgery at JHH. Dr. Marshall called him "The Master". Dr. Picozzi called him "The best surgeon in the world". An ICU nurse mentioned the ICU was getting full and they were moving patients out but my Mom was OK since she was Dr. Cameron's patient. Another nurse mentioned that none of Dr. Cameron's patients are supposed to get infections or complications so they work very hard to avoid them. He puts many of his patients in beautiful Marburg. And most importantly, there is a huge imposing painting of him in the lobby of Blalock.

Mom loves telling people we had the best surgeon in the world and that we stayed on the same floor with famous people and an Arab prince. I think we all derive a lot of psychic benefit from that.