Being diagnosed with cancer takes
quite a toll of its own. Now, after this, if a person has to wait weeks just to
get an appointment and then weeks more to receive results, stress levels are
sure to escalate. To make the frightening ordeal a little less daunting, it
helps if you know exactly how long you will have to likely wait for test
results and the gap between treatments.
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Getting the Tests
Most types of cancer develop gradually over the years and make it
impossible for scans to reveal them until they have grown quite a bit. There is
the risk that the cancer may have spread to other parts of your body like the
CT scan, MRI and liver scans. It is very important for doctors to gather as
much information about cancer as they can. This helps doctors find out what
stage of cancer a person is in. This helps the doctor decide which treatment
would work best for someone.
The sad part about getting
cancer treatment is that you have to wait for weeks to get the
appointment for the tests. This is because there is pressure on the local hospital
because of all the people needing certain forms of tests. Special scanners like
PET and MRI are available in larger hospitals. With this you need to use
another hospital for the scan. This increases the length of time that you wait.
If you are visiting a specialist
radiologist they will simply type up a report and hand it to the cancer
specialist you are seeing, who will then give you the results. If you do not
hear anything after two weeks of the day of your test, you can always ring and
check if your results are in yet.
Starting the Treatment
Of course, it does not make sense to
wait for starting your treatment after you receive your diagnosis. In an ideal
world, people will see that surgery takes place right after. Most surgeries for
cancer are urgent or semi urgent, and depending on the timeframe, need to be
completed somewhere between a month and 90 days time in Australia. Prompt
surgery is always best. After surgery, patients go through adjuvant
chemotherapy to minimize the probability of recurrence. However, with breast
cancer or instance, most patients have to wait a month to 40 days after the
surgery to get their chemotherapy started. It is believed that over 40 days
delay of the therapy can lead to lower benefits of the treatments.
Fortunately, people have more than
one option for their treatment. Radiation therapy for instance, can serve to
assist the major treatment patients may have chosen, or even the major
treatment itself in certain cases. Its track record is pretty impressive,
curing over 40% of people suffering from cancer. Another benefit that makes
radiation therapy popular is that it is comparatively less time consuming than
other treatments, while having fewer side effects too.
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