We have a 51-year-old patient with metastatic lung cancer, diagnosed 11 years ago, Sasich remembered the doctor saying.

“There’s no way,” Sasich interrupted.

Well, he’s been treated for 11 years, the doctor explained.

“You don’t live 11 years after a Stage 4 lung cancer diagnosis,” Sasich said. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
Between patients, Sasich reviewed Warwick’s chart. Something must have been misread along a medical game of telephone, he reasoned, or he’d missed some great advancement in cancer treatment. He found the 2009 report that prompted the cancer diagnosis. A smoker at the time, Warwick had seen an ear, nose and throat doctor about a tiny lump on his neck. The ENT had sent a sample of cells from Warwick’s neck to the lab. A few days later he wrote in the file that they were “most likely consistent” with cancer.

That is not a cancer diagnosis, Sasich thought.