Hello,
I've just been through a horrendous week after some difficult months.
I'm 33 and my lovely mum (68) developed what was thought to be lichen planus about a year ago. It wasn't something I actively enquired about because it was a bit embarassing. It's a condition that generally affects older ladies (dryness and it causes a lot of discomfort down below).
This gradually got worse from April to September and the gynaecologist said it was NOT cancer, as a biopsy didn't indicated this, but they failed to perform a physical examination.
In October mum had a fall which caused her a lot of pain and bruising. As she was recovering from that, the 'lichen planus' continued to worsen.
She developed cellulitis in her leg just before Christmas and this seemed to clear up in antibiotics. Unfortunately, it came back with a vengeance in January and mum was admitted to hospital.
After a month of administering antibiotics that weren't really working, she was discharged because the leg aspiration did not show any cultures.
She then came home for three weeks but her pain kept getting worse. She had to return to hospital a couple of weeks ago and was in absolute agony.
When she arrived the vascular team were fantastic, got her a bed and immediately gave her pain relief.
Mum was quite poorly for a week or so but then seemed to get a little better. I last visited her on the ward last Sunday and she was quite chatty, in some pain but I thought she looked a bit better.
The 'lichen planus' had become so painful that mum couldn't pee so they fitted her with a catheter under anaesthetic. The surgical team said they found 'malignancies' and a biopsy was taken. We got the results last week and it showed that mum had cancer but on Wednesday they said it was usually treated with radiotherapy.
Everything changed last Thursday. We got a phone call from the consultant saying that the cancer was so aggressive and had spread so extensively that there was nothing they could do. The lichen planus was a misdiagnosis - had the gynaecologist performed a physical examination, this would have been found out .Mum was immediately put on palliative care.
So from one day feeling hope that she could be treated to the next day where we learnt that not only was it not treatable, but that she didn't have long left.
When we visited on Thursday she was in so much pain that she couldn't talk and on Friday they had already put her on a syringe driver and she wasn't able to talk much. We have spent the last six days at her bedside, watching her die. She finally passed away this morning with the family at her side and she was very peaceful.
The staff on the ward that looked after mum in her last days were fantastic, I can't stress that enough.
I love my mum so much. I don't know what will happen now. I'm still in shock how things have got so bad in a week. Seeing my mum in such an awful way was the worst thing in my life. I kept whispering in her ear that I love her and that she was not alone but I don't know if she heard. We were robbed of so much time together. She never saw me settle down or find love.
We never suspected cancer. Even two weeks ago, we just thought it was a skin condition.
