Hi Serapine,

I guess that's the greatest mystery of all and no-one who has been through it gets to tell their story to tye ones they leave behind.

People say that time is a healer, it isn't but with time you learn to live with those unsanswered questions and eventually get on with your life. Short of losing a child, losing a parent is one of the worst things we ever go through. You wouldn't be normal if you weren't feeling this way. Our society doesn't acknowledge death and grieving half as much as would be healthy for us all.

Best wishes

Dave

I guess it's only natural that we are filled with so many questions. It must have been very hard for you Paulus, in that you did what you could and things still went wrong. I hope you can get some answers, and maybe some compensation for her misdiagnosis. 

I don't think I'll get any answers. I mean, ultimately, I know what happened - at least the big picture. My mom ignored any symptoms she ever had until she had no choice but to go the doctor. I think it’s disgusting that in 2011 she went to a walk in clinic for breathing problems and they told her go home and deal with her anxiety, and prescribed anti-biotics. It took breaking her leg and ending up in hospital four years later before they diagnosed her emphesema!!! A year later she ended up in hospital for breathing problems and they discovered breast cancer! How long she’d had it, we don’t know, but she ignored the lump she had for at least a year. She also knew about a spot on her lung as well as a mass on her other breast in October. But she cancelled PET scan and biopsy. All of these things contributed to very late diagnoses, which impacted what kind of treatment she could have. 

We knew in February that she had metatastic lung cancer that had spread to her leg and her breast (this time the other breast). They couldn’t treat it. But I could have been more pro-active in getting her into a comfortable palliative care unit. I hated that she lived half her life in hospitals for the last three years. 

I didn’t know anything about cancer, and I foolishly believed that although her cancer couldn’t be treated, that she’d be with us for a few more years. What I was basing that assumption on, I don’t know. But given her emphesema, another broken leg, metatastic lung cancer - it’s not surprising that she went fast. But I guess I still don’t understand how lung disease works. What respiratory failure is. How lung cancer weakens you. I don’t how any of it works. So I guess I still don’t understand how she died, and why so quickly. 

Well in my case the stroke and sepsis took lizzie so quick she had many underlying problems but i had kept her propped up for a number of years call it sixth sense but i allways seemed to know when she was unwel but this time it totaly took me by surprise and spent weeks thinking could i have done more but ime not a dr even though marie currie nurse asked me if ide been a nurse .of course i wasnt but loved her so much i was desperate to keep her going so i studied and studied giggerbyts on cancer antioxident you name it and she had such trust in me . But in the end i just couldnt save her sounds silly but of cource the guilt and feeling of failure was almost unbearable even though ime the only on thaught that .i dont feel that way now ive almost worked my way through that now.but my inner critic still trys to throw guilt in but i work through it .i was just advising you for your peace of mind that the pals will help if you have any unaswerd questions but copd and lung cancer from what ive studied can just become so aggressive they thought lizzies was slow growing and suddenly it went mad it was horrific even thoe it was a stroke then sepsis took her it was the tha cancer that took her .the trouble is that the nhs is so slow scans take weeks apointments more weeks but if your rich it dosnt we now have a two tier nhs system clement attlee and  ny beven must be turning in there graves if they saw what was happening now to me its like ime in the sea up to my waist with my back to the waves and every now and then a big wave hits me ime flattend .grief is horrible but the anxiaty makes almost unbearable regards paul

I'm sorry Paul. I know how frustrating your health system is. Ours in Canada is similar. In some ways worse. A friend of mine suspected he had something very wrong with him and was worried. Doctors told him his scan would be in 4 months. He freaked. He thought, what if it's cancer? I don't want to wait! So he went private, and had his scan immediately. It turned out to be Hodgkins Disease. 

Yes, it's getting to the point where rich people get treated quickly, and everyone else has to wait and hope for the best.

My mom had an undiagnosed neurological condition that started in the 60's. She herself said that if she was rich she'd just go to the States and was sure she'd get a proper diagnosis. 

It also took six months from the time she had a breast cancer diagnosis two years ago to the time she received radiation. Nine months after the radiation they saw a spot on her lung. 

I also think that with elderly people, the hospital staff are quick to dismiss them as dying people not worth saving. Particularly if they have terminal cancer. My mom said something weird to me a few days before she passed away. She was very irate, because the breathing was difficult and just the whole stress of everything. She suddenly said something to the effect that doctors are just euthanizing elderly people and that I should know that this is happening! Another friend of mine lost his dad two years ago, and he told me that he believed that to be true too. That they don't call it that, but he felt that the high doses of morphine were effectively achieving a similar result. 

I feel that my mom wasn't given much of a chance. The doctors told her she was dying. That was it. What was she supposed to think?

But I'm not going to worry about it all too much. Obviously she had terminal cancer that had spread, and was severely aenemic so they suspected colon cancer too. With the severe COPD exacerbation she had, she was likely to have another one. In a way, it's best she went quickly without too much suffering.

Ime sorry didnt know you are in canada so you will not have the pals system .i did that morphean i right doses can help with breathing in some cases liz used to say i dont know how you remember all this stuff i used to say i just can yet my short term memorys terrible but thats a stmptom of mild dyslexia i suppose but the sepsis was a blessing for my liz she would not have survived but at least she didnt die paralyzed of the cancer theres some comfort in that  .regards paul and thanks