Less than a year after declaring herself cancer-free, Kathy Griffin turned to social media Monday for medical advice because she said her doctor had "ghosted" her.
"I know this is crazy but I cannot get an oncologist on the phone and the surgeon who did my half of lung removal has ghosted me," Griffin captioned screenshots of the results of her latest lung cancer scan.
"This is what it's come to people! I'm putting my scan results on Instagram in hopes that somebody will put it under an oncologist's nose and send me some sort of interpretation in English of what's going on with my post operation situation! Social media can be used for good, dammit!"
On Twitter, Griffin added that she suspected the scan was "clean" but was looking for a second opinion from #CancerTwitter after she couldn't get any doctors to interpret the results in real life.
In August 2021, the veteran comedian and actor announced that she had been diagnosed with stage 1 lung cancer, adding that she has "never smoked." At the time, she was about to undergo surgery to remove half of her left lung, where the cancer was contained.
Since then, Griffin has said she "lost confidence" in her lung surgeon upon finding out that he underwent knee surgery immediately after performing surgery on her lungs and therefore "didn't eat or drink before he cut" into her. She also accused the physician on Monday of ruining her vocal cords and her arytenoids — which are attached to vocal cords — "permanently."
"It's discouraging 2 me that people are sticking up 4 a surgeon who has caused me so many difficulties," Griffin added after some accused her of overreacting. "I sure wish I had gotten chemo/radiation instead of surgery with this hack Dr."
In response to her social media poll, the consensus among current and former health care professionals seemed to be that the results of Griffin's scan are good and she should be just fine. Though at least one person recommended she "schedule an appointment with a pulmonary oncologist and have them look at the actual scan" in order to be "fully reassured."
"I don't know one," Griffin replied on Twitter. "I don't even have a pulmonologist. The dude I had is like 85 years old. Also no more men. Not kidding. I'd prefer a female under 50. I'd love recommendations for Cedars, St Johns or UCLA! I've had s— care & it makes me extremely fearful and anxious."
While appearing on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" in December, Griffin revealed that her cancer was gone after doctors successfully extracted a tumor from her lungs. She also explained to the late-night TV host why her voice was "a good two octaves higher" than it used to be.
"They put the intubation tube too rough on my vocal cord, so now I'm like Minnie Mouse meets Marilyn Monroe," she joked. "It's higher than Mariah Carey, I know that."
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