The Moment of Sarcoma Diagnosis
Dr. David Loeb: Usually the first question that I get asked once I've given a patient a diagnosis is: "Where do we go from here?" Most patients who come to me have never heard of sarcoma before, but even before they start to ask details about what does this disease mean, patients recognize that they have cancer and that's a life threatening diagnosis. And so the first direction that their minds tend to travel is, "Well, what are we going to do next? How are we going to find out if it has spread? How are we going to treat this and make it go away?"
Sometimes not asked, but I think always in the back of the patient's mind, is: "Does this mean I am going to die, or does this mean my child is going to die?" Usually after we address those issues is when patients are able to take a step back and start to ask, "Well what does this diagnosis really mean? Where did this come from? How did this happen, and why did this happen to me?"