Your first instinct will be to want to know what you're up against -- and getting the most accurate and specific diagnosis enables the patient to get the best possible treatment.
You may find yourself wanting to get on the Internet and research the cancer, and to do that you'll need to know not only the type, but the stage, perhaps the subtype, and other information such as whether it's "in situ," which means the cells are limited to one spot, or "invasive," which means it has spread or has the potential to spread.
Within many general types of cancer, such as How do I get the doctor to give us complete and honest information? It may be that you need to do some research and then schedule a follow-up phone call in which you can ask additional questions. Remember, this is the beginning of an ongoing relationship between you as caregiver, the patient, and her doctor, and you can always come back to request additional information.
Although it's possible that the doctor has run every possible test and still can't locate the original cancer, there's also a chance he stopped short of conducting the full range of tests. These can include immunohistochemistry analysis, CT scans, MRIs and bone scans, blood tests for markers such as CA-125 (which suggests MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. You might even want to send slides to more than one pathologist -- in a case like this, the more information you have, the better off you are.
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