How not to tell someone you think they should die

From Jim Gilliam's blog

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September 28, 2005 08:06 PM

Yesterday, I finally got a callback from the UCLA lung transplant coordinator, Nancy Bishop. She called me to schedule an appointment to meet with Dr. David Ross and get my evaluation testing rolling.

Whoa! This was quite a surprise because on Monday my lung guy told me he had talked with Dr. Ross who said that he was rejecting me because the scarring in my upper lungs would make the surgery very very difficult.

Oh yes! That's right.. She was mistaken. Here's the letter... I had been denied because of my history of ALL (leukemia).

Huh? I said. That's not what Dr. Ross told my doctor. He said it was because the surgery would be too difficult because of my scarring.

Oh yeah, that's effectively the same thing.

Excuse me? Now I'm completely confused. My doctor said explicitly that Dr. Ross said it was not because of my cancer history, but that the surgery itself would be too difficult because of the scarring.

Umm.. errr... the letter is kind of hard to read.. let me .. yes, it says because of history of ALL and media stinal radiation.

Words cannot describe how this made me feel. I'll leave it at that.

Things are proceeding on the Cedars front... their "customer service" has been much better so far.