"I was referred to CTCA last May for suspected lymphoma. My initial visit was great-the doctor and staff I saw were wonderful. What followed was an absolute nightmare of poor communication and mismanagement. My nurse navigator, Marisol, should not be a nurse navigator. Her job is to help patients navigate through their diagnosis, be their advocate etc. All Marisol did was cause confusion, anger and more tears than any other part of my treatment. Going through cancer is hard enough, but having a nurse like Marisol made it even harder. 

I asked her to ask the oncologist for prescription-she never followed up on my request. 

Several appointments were mischeduled but was the most egregious was on a Thursday night in July, in an email, I saw an updated schedule from her for my appointment the next day. My initial appointment was more tests and consults. The updated schedule showed  chemo was to start. I was scheduled to arrive at 8:00am, bunch of tests, picc line at 3 and chemo starts at 5.  We had not discussed chemo, side effects, how long chemo was going to last, and I hadn't signed any consents. I called Marisol immediately because this was not the plan and why am I finding this out at 5pm the night before? Marisol's response was "oh you don't want to start chemo tomorrow?Sorry for the confusion" This was the tipping point. I went to CTCA the next day, spoke to a lot of people about what transpired and was reassured that Marisol wouldn't be my navigator, that my 8 hour infusion would be scheduled for the morning and not at the end of the day at 5pm. For context, Marisol had scheduled me to arrive at 8am and start an 8 hour infusion at 5pm, ending around 2am and then I'd drive the 90 minutes home. 

None of what was promised actually happened. The scheduler I spoke with scheduled my first session for 5pm. "