So Joe got diagnosed in September and by November we had to make the call on where to do his treatment. Stage III pleural, and honestly the first few weeks were just... a blur of second opinions and doctors talking at us instead of with us.
What actually helped was stopping trying to find the "best" center and instead asking what they do a lot and who's doing the surgery. Sounds simple but we were spinning our wheels looking at rankings online when we should've just called and asked "how many EPP surgeries did your team do last year?" The answer matters way more than a fancy website.
We ended up at a place that wasn't the closest to Tampa but they'd done over 100 of these. The surgeon had done it maybe 200 times in his career. That felt different than talking to someone who does it occasionally. And the immunotherapy protocol they had lined up after surgery was already mapped out before we even signed consent forms.
One thing nobody tells you is that you need to ask about who's on the team. Like literally who's the anesthesiologist, who's running the chemo schedule, who's your follow-up oncologist. Because that person matters as much as the big name surgeon does. We got lucky that Joe's chemo nurse has been amazing and honestly that's made a huge difference in how he's handling it.
Anyway the point is don't get paralyzed by trying to find perfection. Volume, experience, and a team that actually communicates with each other. That's the real stuff. How are people handling the center decision where you guys are?