hi, I was diagnosed with breast cancer mid March of this year.
I was originally told I would be operated on within a month, but because of other medical conditions there was disagreement as to whether I would survive the operation. Eventually it was decided that they would operate as otherwise the outcome was spreading of the cancer and eventually death. In the time they spent arguing the tumour grew by 50%. I had had a previous operation that had left me with a frozen shoulder so was told by the surgeon that I would not be able to place my arm in the correct position for radiotherapy and therefore would have to have a mastectomy rather than a lumpectomy, the lymph nodes would also have to all be removed as the cancer had spread to them, and treatment would be chemotherapy followed by hormone treatment.
I resent the time the surgeons spent arguing because the cancer was growing all the time.
i resent even more that after surgery I saw the oncologist who was horrified at the idea of giving me chemotherapy. He had not been consulted by the surgeon and the first he knew of my medical history was my first appointment with him. He said chemotherapy was likely to kill me. What choice did I have but to insist that I tried anyway. Otherwise where was the point of the surgery. I got half way through the course only to find that I was going into organ failure as the oncologist had predicted. So the treatment left was radiotherapy where for each session my arm was forced into position regardless of the frozen shoulder. I did manage to complete the course, but my skin has reacted badly and two weeks after the last session it is raw and occasionally bleeds. I was also left 2 and a half months between chemo being cancelled and radiotherapy started. Everyone else I spoke to had waited only one month.
I feel that the whole process has been mishandled and that the chances of cancer recurring have been greatly increased by the way my case has been dealt with.
to compound the issue because of how ill I was during the chemotherapy and the period afterwards, the business I had been running successfully for 12 years had to close. My husband put the closure in the hands of another company so he could concentrate on me. They ripped us off and out of over £100000 worth of stock we got not one penny. I am now incapable of work because the cancer and it’s treatment has made my other medical conditions so much worse, my husband is my carer and can only work a few hours a week as he needs to be available for me. So we can’t pay the mortgage or the bills. Tried everywhere to get advice and help, including Macmillan supposedly there to help and advise, their advice was to go look on the internet.
i can not walk, we have been turned down for a stair lift because I have blackouts, well stairlifts can have seat belts. So to get up and downstairs I have to crawl on hands and knees. Because of peripheral neuropathy which I already had but which has been worsened by the chemo, I can’t feel my hands and feet so often miss the stair anyway, that results in a slide down the stairs, a painful process when you have had three surgeries in the last 18 months.
i feel there is no one there to help, I had a lot of “friends” including ones I had given both emotional and financial support to over the years. They aren’t there anymore, it appears that since I no longer have anything to give I am worthless.
all this has contributed to the depression I already suffered from for over 20 years and I am now suicidal. The help I got for that was to have the antidepressants changed and a warning that it was obvious that my husband was aware that I was suicidal and therefore if I committed suicide it would be held that he was complicit and would be charged with helping me to commit suicide which would result in a prison sentence.
so I lie in bed waiting for an eviction notice because the council have no obligation to rehouse me until I am homeless.
can anyone tell me why I should carry on?
