Hospital Bill, German style

[DFW]

45. Wow, what a great happy ending story!

My wife seems to have escaped cardiac issues (so far!!). However, ten years ago, her gynecologist did discover three small spots on a routine uterine exam. The gynocologist said they were probably nothing, but since she had had full blown breast cancer 15 years before, they would do biopsies “just in case.” Two of the three were indeed nothing, but the third one was “the murderer,” a deadly form of uterine/ovarian cancer that is silent, fast-spreading, and always fatal because it is never discovered until it is too late. She wss sent to a specialized women’s clinic here in Düsseldorf.

The oncologist said it was just about the worst news she could get EXCEPT that he had NEVER seen the Murderer caught this early. He booked her for surgery right away, circumventing rules for patients of her secoond class insurance (i.e. hurry up and wait). They took 84 biopsies (!!!!) and all 84 came back negative. The surgeon was amazed. For the first time in 30 years of treating this cancer, he was telling my wife the she probably was going to survive. It was a brutal six hour operation but he saw no spreading at all. For the first time, he was telling her how lucky she was instead of how much time she had left. That one in ten thousand.