I have received nothing but exceptional care at FH. I was diagnosed last year with leukemia and received a bone marrow transplant, with many many weeks of hospitalizations for chemo and conditioning. As an outpatient, I was at Fred Hutch pretty much daily for months for transfusions, appointments and med checks. I was seen by the orange BMT team, Dr. Ghuizeli’s leukemia team (cedar team), and post BMT Sequoia team. Each step has been made so much easier by the excellent communication and teamwork between the schedulers, the nurses, PA/NPs and physicians. This place runs like a well oiled machine. I was extremely lucky to both live in Seattle and receive world class care at this facility for cancer because I’m not sure if I would have survived receiving care at a different institution. I even had a second opinion consult at MD Anderson and their team said for leukemia and transplant Fred Hutch is where you want to be. Thank you to my amazing teams who I got to know so well, as I am now spacing out appointments and labs to every 2 weeks I don’t have to be there as often. However, they remain available and accessible for me with great turnaround times for response on MyChart and via phone.
They provided good palliative (very generous with the narcotics) care for my wife's pancreatic cancer, but their cancer treatments were poor, insincere, and designed to for the patient to fit their program, not for the program to fit the patients needs. Her treatments were initially once a week, with blood tests prior to the treatment. On the second treatment for her second cycle, they found that her potassium levels were too low. So they cancelled the treatment that week and gave her an intravenous infusion of potassium. One of the things that her blood tests showed that week was that the "cancer markers" in her blood were lower than at any time since she started treatment. At the time, I trusted the doc's decision. We skipped that week and came back for the third treatment in that cycle, with a break then for imaging. Her blood markers were never that low again.
After she died, I reviewed her medical tests, and asked why, instead of skipping the treatment, we didn't come back the next day (Saturday ) for the treatment. Then they began fumbling around for further excuses, including that her white blood cell count was too low. Upon further review, I noted that her white cell count had been worse before her first ever treatment. Then they changed their story again that the cancer markers weren't all that important, and it was her imaging tests that showed that the tumors progressing. They seemed to be basing this on the imaging that was still 2 weeks in the future. After the third treatment in cycle 2, and the break for the imaging, the doctor proposed changing her chemo to a much, MUCH more toxic bunch of chemicals. She was only able to take 2 rounds of that treatment, and the pictures I have show how fast she deteriorated, and she died a month after starting the "new and better" chemo.
She chose to stop the treatments after the second time, preferring to face the agony of the disease to the misery of "medical treatment".
When I challenged them about skipping the second treatment, instead of rescheduling it the next day (which would have been on a Saturday. For the record, that clinic on a Saturday is like a high school campus.), they gave me a variety of run arounds, but never a straight answer.
When I experience media ads for assorted cancer treatment facilities, I can only weep, and wish I had paid attention to them in time.
For the love of God, if you are facing this crisis in your life, shop around, and my recommendation would be anywhere but Fred Hutch.
