I hate it when the doctors think we're all dumb!

My father is in the capital city at the moment for his first treatment of cancer.

My mother and sister are with him. Basically, my mother will be caring after my father and my sister will be caring after my mother. Yes, my lil sis is the one gutsy enough to stick a needle into my mother for her insulin shot. I was offered to do it once by the nurses at the hospital but I backed out. I'm not afraid of needles on myself but sticking them into other people is a different thing. I'm not keen on inflicting pain onto others.

Anyway, my brothers who were there are now at home. My elder brother isn't too happy that there is no info at all from the doctors about the stage our father's cancer is at. It certainly isn't Stage 1. Our old man has been going to the hospital since 2007. It means he had been feeling unwell for a few years already. My mother was suffering for FOUR excruciating years before being diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer.

My brother expressed his concerns about the kind of treatment the doctors plan to give. It's still unclear at present. He talked about the new treatment where patients swallow the chemo instead of being pumped with it. Having lost our cousin to cancer last December and another close relative before that, we are not keen on our family members being the experiment objects of doctors for treatment effectiveness study.

I remember my father lecturing the doctors at the our state's General hospital for a 'botched experiment' on my mother when the operation supposedly to reattach her colon was not successful once. He boldly told them that 'my wife is not a lab object and you can't subject human lives on 'trial and error' like that'.

Also, I hate it when doctors wouldn't let us go through the records they make for patients which they normally leave lying on the patients' side tables. I was reading through my mother's record once and the doctor quickly came and took it from my hand. He said something about 'family members not supposed to know'. Hello, spare us some respect, please. At the end of the day, we, the family members, are the ones who have to look after our sick ones. For me, it's easier for us to know everything as much as possible so that we can tailor ourselves to suit the patients' daily life requirement.

At the moment, yes, I do feel that the doctors think we're so dumb that we can't handle such matters. As for any kind of sickness, we have to take charge of ourselves or our loved ones when they're too weak. Isn't the best way to start taking charge is getting well-informed first?