Hi all. My name is Jon, and my beautiful wife was diagnosed with terminal breast, lung and bone cancer on Wednesday. The prognosis we received on Thursday was that due to the damage already caused, worst case scenario was that she could only have weeks left.
The Drs decided to do an MRI on her brain and there is evidence that it may have spread there, and the timeline was changed from weeks to days.
She had back pain since the beginning of August this year, and she decided to go to our GP who prescribed pain killers as it was "muscular". She also had pins & needles and numbness on one side of her face and left hand. She was told to book a blood test which she did.
The pills she was given didn't work so she went back, and they imcreased the dosage.
By the time the apppintment for the blood test came through she could hardly move. I needed to help her get into/out of bed, dress her, help her shower and whem she went to the toilet. She called the Drs saying that she wouldn't be able to attend as she wpuld struggle to get there as the surgery was too far away from a car park. She was given a different number to call to arrange someone to come to the house to take it.
When she called the number she was told that she did not qualify as she wasn't "house bound" as per there rules
We called a Dr to do a house visit as the pain was becoming worse, but she just prescribed different medication, which still didn't work.
A couple of Sundays ago we went to the nearest NHS walk in centre, and when we finally saw a Dr he was already writing out the prescription.
She was booked in for physio on Wednesday who took one look at her and told her to get to A&E at a different hospital as her problem was medical not physical. We wen the same day and to start with, the impression we got was "why are you here with back pain"?
It was only when they did an external examination that they thought she had breast cancer but on having an x-ray, CT and MRI of her tordo it showed that it had attacked the liver and spine. 3 of her lower vertebrae had virtually collapsed which explained the discomfort and severe pain.
So went into A&E with my wife having severe back pain on Wednesday to finding out on the Saturday that she may only have days to live.
My mother in law moved in with us last year and is in her mid 70s. We have 3 children who have left home.
Really struggling to come to terms with it and keep thinking about how I will cope both emotionally and financially. So far we have had no support from the hospital.
