Continuing to wade through the information mess

A good friend who happens to be a doctor just sent me a link to a study about bone density loss (and resulting life-long risks of bone fracture) for men like me who are undergoing androgen deprivation therapy (what I call 'hormone therapy'). While I haven't read the entire text of the paper (yet) it is something to talk to my doctors about and see what their advice is.  (I put the link to the abstract in the "helpful links" section too, and can share the entire text with anyone who's interested.)

Speaking of talking to my doctors, I saw my radiation oncologist recently and he thought we should start running PSA tests again to see what the levels looked like.  Fine with me.  But then he noticed that the urologist had used a different lab than he had used.  So, he held off setting those up.  I must have misunderstood, because I thought he was going to contact the urologist and settle who should handle what (if that makes sense).  And so I waited to hear from one of them.

Silly me.  I didn't hear from either doctor... and finally called the radiation oncologist's office and talked to one of the nurses who essentially told me that when radiation was done, scheduling of tests belonged to the urologist.  And so now I need to call in to my urologist.  But some part of me thought this was a cooperative effort.  Turns out you need to manage this all the way.  And I think that also means managing the research efforts and follow-up with the doctors.

That might sound like a slam, but I don't mean it as one. It's a disappointment to think that there are such lines of demarcation, and seemingly no overall manager of the case except for me (and my network...bless them!).  I should have known, or at least expected this based on prior experience with managing medical treatment and information with my father. 

But wait, there's more...