Over the past few weeks my solicitor has had Robins treatment reviewed by independant medical/dental experts.
This week i have received copies of the reports.The Dental report states categorically that the dentist was negligent .He was guilty of gross misconduct and fraudulent record keeping .
The report from the professor of head and neck cancer says he was negligent but he was'n't responsible for Robins death.

On Dec 4th on examination robin had a 4*3 cm swelling on the left side of his face as well as a 1.5cm ulcer on the lateral surface on the right side of his tongue.

The pathology on the tongue showed a poorly differentiated scc which was ulcerated and measured 11 mm invading into the underlying muscle.
The pathology on the neck showed a 31mm poorly differentiated scc in the soft tissue of submandibular region separate from the gland .The surrounding lymph glands were free from tumour.
Her conclusions are.. [quote] there are obviously great difficulties in suggesting the degree of benefit likely to have been achieved by an advance in the date of diagnosis and treatment by five months.One must recognise however the aggressive appearance under microscope ,the relatively short interval between the appearance of the tumour and the presentation of the gland on the neck,the unusual migration of tumour cells to the opposite side of the neck and the possibility that they had already reached that area by June 2006,the short intrval between the completion of treatment and the appearance of the local recurrance and the detection of the distant metastisis in the lung and finally the short interval between diagnosis and death.One cannot exclude the possibility that an earlier diagnosis would have given some chance of cure but i fear the possibility to be too small to be given significane.

[/quote]

So it would seem the General Dental councils decision was right and proper ,and the punishment the dentist received was fitting to his crime,and of course the world wide publicity which was associated with the hearing can only have been good for raising awareness and for all future potential oral cancer patient.

So the line is drawn finally .Cancer killed Robin.He was a high risk subject and he paid the ultimate price for his excesses,and i will continue to do everything i can to help other wives,husbands/daughters/sons/brothers and sister/living their lives in the shadow of this disease.
A suggestion has been brought up regarding a manual for the relatives who walk this road alongside their loved ones,and i think i am going to pick this one up and run with it.Cathy if you want to help i would be very happy and if any others from the old wives club fancy chipping in that would be great.I have an appointment with my grief counsellor tomorrow whic is well timed as now i have no one person to direct my anger towards i am sure she will hepl me give it up and move on..

Hi Liz- Must be difficult knowing that the Drs. cold have made different decisions that could have possibly lead to a different result for Robin. I too went to several drs and wanted to believe that there wasn't anything seriously wrong with me even though I felt horrible and was in so much pain.. and I knew that this thing on my tongue wasn't normal. Its hard because medical professionals all sort of look out for one another and protect one another and at least in America they will never speak out against one another.

My case was so obviously mishandled by my general practitioner who examined me twice. I should have been referred right away and she basiclaly laughed at me when I asked if the spot on my tongue was anything to be alarmed about. I don't know if I would have been able to speak any better but I do know that I would have been able to start my treatment much earlier and have been cured much earlier. I guess its just a really difficult thing to prove.

Thinking of you and knowing I would feel just as upset too. Sometimes there are just those days where it will never make sense.
I think the more knowledge people have the more awareness there will be of this disease and the sooner people will be able to catch the warning signs right away

take care. K

Hope you have a good session today LIz. Re the guide: you can count me in, if and when you want support.

Big hugs, I feel for you so.

Cathy

Liz, you can count me in too with regards to the guide. I'll help in anyway I possibly can. Hope you are feeling better after today xo

Liz-I'll be glad to help with the guide also. I think this would be invaluable.

Way to go Liz. I can't wait to read a rough draft. If we can get that published I will make sure it's available at Moffitt. I would also love to carry copies of it with me when I speak or even to have available in my office.

Well we better see what we can do then David lol

Seriously, Moffitt has their own OC pamphlet and it was one of the first things I read and to this day I'm not impressed with it at all so I think you could develop a much better one and perhaps we could publish under the OCF banner.

David i was thinking along the lines of a paperback book,but perhaps we could also incoporat an information pamphlet which we could roll out quicker leaving me time to get the format of a larger tome that i hope could include questions and their answers that have been asked both here and on MCF during my three year membership.This was floated from a carers stance.Do we have a pamhlet for new patients and if not should we be looking at producing one?

Cathy thanks for the kind thoughts.Yes the session went well,but once again even though i can feel the anger dissapating i cant let go of that one line she wrote"one cannot exclude the possibility that an ealier diagnosis could have resulted in a cure"but i am determined not to dwell on that,just turn it into a positive by ensuring that everyone gets the earliest diagnosis they can. xxx

Well girls looks like we got us a project!!