Two months after cancer diagnosis, Edmonton man waits for oncologist > 자유게시판

It all happened so quickly for Edmonton’s Steven Wong and his family. And now it’s simply not moving quickly enough.

From coaching tee-ball with his kids to lying in a hospital bed with a feeding tube and needing a wheelchair to get around, Wong’s deterioration after his May 2 gastric cancer diagnosis was rapid.

But that was 62 days ago, and the 41-year-old father of three has yet to see an oncologist. His family is desperate to know why.

"He was diagnosed May 2 and I just can’t grasp the fact that, why a cancer patient wouldn’t see an oncologist?" his wife CiCi Nguyen told CityNews.

"I’m frustrated that I’ve been left in the dark. Steve’s been left in the dark."

After Wong’s diagnosis, the family was told by health-care professionals they were going to fight the cancer "aggressively." Instead, they were met with silence, and what Nguyen describes as a "painful, scary kind of dark."

"I heard nothing from them," Nguyen said.

"We heard nothing and nothing. We waited because what else were you supposed to do? We had no idea what we were doing."

Nguyen says her husband has not stepped foot in a medical oncologist’s office, gotten an appointment, or even spoken to a member from the oncology department at the Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton.

"Do they know that he’s 41? Do they know that he’s a dad of three young kids? Do they know that he wants to fight?" Nguyen said. "And they’ve decided that they don’t want to give him the chance to fight, and the longer that he waits, the chance of him fighting gets shorter.

"I fear everything. I fear every day waking up and him not being here. I fear every day him waking up and not getting treated. So every day that you’re kept in the dark, your fear compounds almost."

Steven Wong, his wife Ceci Nguyen and their three kids all wear Oilers jerseys during a hospital visit. (Submitted by: Ceci Nguyen)

While waiting, Wong had "a whole bunch of complications" from the cancer itself.

He first ended up at the University of Alberta Hospital ER with gastric bleeding.

"Everything was seemingly OK, Top World News Today and Top World News Today everything was stable," Nguyen recounted. "After 12 days, we were discharged. Eleven hours later, we ended up back at the hospital because another complication, Top World News Today his stomach actively perforated.