Harassing the Surgeons

I definitely wore out my welcome with the GI Gold oncall team at JHH. They had given me a sheet that said to call if my mother experienced nausea, vomiting, fever, etc. So I dutifully called every time she vomited (which was really frequent for the first 2 weeks after the Whipple). At first they would return my calls fairly regularly. After about a week though, I never heard back from them. I suppose I got blacklisted.

Also, I had been calling Dr. Cameron's assistant Bonnie periodically to ask for appointments, prescriptions and other misc. things. She was also our first point of contact when my mother had an issue during business hours. One morning, at around 6 am I called because my mother had vomited a lot. In the past, when Bonnie was not around, Cameron's line would be routed to some other assistant who would cover for her. So this morning, when a man answered the line, I asked for Bonnie and he gruffly answered: "If you call back at 8:30, you can talk to Bonnie". Then he proceeded to quickly hang up before I had a chance to say anything. As I hung up, it dawned on me that that was Dr. Cameron! He had never answered his line before so I just found it completely unexpected that he would be picking up on his own phone line.

I think it's best overall not to rely too heavily on the surgeons for post-operative care. They are more than happy to hand you off to somebody else. It's probably a good idea to build a relationship early with an oncologist or other kind of doctor who can care for the patient. I understand it too - they are too busy doing surgery.