Wilms’ Tumour

An Explanation by Dr Kingsley Before Your Consultation

about your Child’s Wilm’s Tumour.

“Most consultations with doctors are fairly quick affairs, lasting perhaps five minutes, even if your child is suspected of having a tumour.  You may be lucky to have more time spent on you, but when you have your consultation with me, I will spend as much time as you want.  There is no time limit.  We will take as long as you want.

Often when I see some people with a child for the first time, they are in a state of panic.  They haven’t a clue what it is all about.  No one has explained anything to them or possibly only very little.  Perhaps in the past they themselves had been admitted for an emergency operation, or they had simply been told to come into hospital on such-and-such a day when they were either operated on or had started a course of chemotherapy or radiotherapy, if they had had cancer.  The situation is so much worse when a child is involved. 

Once in hospital some sort of explanation may have been given, and your child was probably seen by a junior doctor who had not only taken a short history of any symptoms your child had had, but had also done a clinical examination to look for any signs of cancer, but, of course, by then, you and your child were already captive and didn’t really have much choice in the matter.

To be fair to doctors, they assume that their advice is the best on offer.  After all, they are the experts.  Virtually all doctors would treat your child’s condition in roughly the same way, so it seldom occurs to them that you just might not want to follow their advice. 

In any case, most parents have been frightened by the diagnosis and want to get on with the treatment, assuming that the doctor can deal with it for them.  Most people put their faith in their doctor, assuming he knows what he is doing.

There is absolutely no intention on my part of telling you whether to follow your doctor’s advice of not.  That is a decision you have to make on behalf of your child.  No one can make it for you, but I will help you make up your mind.  The situation is somewhat different when a child is involved, because, if you do not allow the doctors to treat your child in the way they think is best, they do have the option of making your child a ward of court.  

The Consultation

The virtual consultation with me has been planned as though you are with me in my consulting room.  I will go though your child’s history, and take some details from the mother, explaining the parts of it that give me clues to the cause of child’s problems. 

The chances are that, having taken a medical history from many thousands of patients over nearly forty years of medical practice, especially in the detail that I find so valuable, it is likely that much of it will be appropriate to you as a family.

The consultation is one of the longest parts of this programme, as you would imagine, and it is full of fascinating information.  Periodically I lecture to medical colleagues on the subject of ‘What a clinical history and the clinical examination can tell me’. 

All this information is the result of my many years of listening to patients, letting them tell their stories, believing in their observations that have often been ignored, and learning by experience. 

So, enjoy yourself, feel enlightened, smile, be happy and radiate confidence in what you are going to do.  Be positive and forget the doom and gloom merchants.  If someone has given your child a poor prognosis, forget it.  Your child no longer fits into their statistics.  You are going to do something to help your child recover from any necessary treatment.  You are going to become involved and share your child’ treatment responsibilities.

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