So I made a trip to A&E with lots of worsening symptoms with spitting up blood every hour and a ***severe*** earache (and headache) that was cutting through 4 co-codamol,facial numbness, and what I believe is atleast 1 lump in my neck - I'm very afraid I have oropharyngeal cancer or another head/neck type.
From A&E to acute care, then after seeing a consultant and requesting a CT scan, she agreed it was worth having one done to see if that finds a cause. I was told it would be atleast a 24 hour wait as they had a load of emergencies come through and that on Monday they see urgent patients first thing (so apparently I'm not urgent still which is great). That was on Sunday, I arrived on Sunday 8am.
I saw another consultant earlier today who asked me to spit into a tissue, which I did and though he called it clear it was definetely rust coloured. He then said "oh so it's stopped then", like if im not spitting blood every hour of the day then I'm fine. I got very upset and irrate, at the exact moment he had to take a phone call. I head over to sink in the room I'm staying at in hospital and spit and thankfully got a fresh chunk of bright red blood. He came back in and I asked him why he seemed like he wasn't willing to help me with his "oh its stopped then" line (I've been spitting blood for 9 weeks, its never stopped for more than a few hours).
This is when he got almost angry with me, as if I don't have a right to be worried, and literally said he "could take away my CT scan and make me wait" - by wait he meant 7 weeks - as that is when I had one booked for previously.
I asked him if he was threatening to take away medical care based on how I spoke to him - which to be clear I do not care what I said to him, its literally breaking his hippocratic oath, let alone the fact that I was only *worried* about getting actual care (since I've been denied it by 10 GPs and 2 specialists already, but I was hardly rude just very concerned)... When he calmed down he agreed that I should have the CT done but I'd have to see an ENT first and welp I'm still waiting on that, even though he said blood in the saliva like mine (bright red, every hour) was "rare", still nobody seems to act with any urgency, technically I'm still no on a cancer pathway even with a bloody lump in my neck.
Thankfully I recorded the audio on my phone without him knowing as I know its legal to do with doctors and after being so insanely neglected at every turn it has almost become a necessity to document things (plus I have really bad adhd so I'd forget what was said anyway)
Dont know how to feel about all this as he said I still needed to see an ENT before my CT scan, but an ENT still hasn't turned up today even tho I saw him at like 12:30pm. I mean I dont want to assume he's intentionally making my diagnosis take longer than it has to but clearly he is the type that will dictate what treatment he gives to others based on how he feels about them (which is so ******* up). But l don't have a choice eitherway, so here I am, a second overnight stay in hospital without a CT scan, without anything at all. Literally nothing done apart from bloods which I guess is something but jeez, if I dont get this CT scan tomorrow its criminal... and I then still have to wait for the results...
On top of all this I'm super worried cause I found kinda small soft lump near my adams apple on my left side which is the same as my severe earache, then noticed a load of tenderness or swelling around the lymph nodes up and down the entirety of the left side of my neck which I *really* hope isn't a tumor, as if it is it's over 3 inches, but it hasn't gone down at all yet.
Plus before I left on Sunday I did the ENTUK diagnostic calculator which said I had a 62% probability of head and neck cancer... yet i've been waiting 7 weeks to get any kind of help (could get a 2ww referral cause of my age apparently), and going to be what seems like three total days in hospital to get my first CT scan. So as you can imagine I'm at peak anxiety right now, I hate my life so much its insane.
Sorry for the rant but didn't know where else to talk about this, I feel like absolutely noone in the NHS cares about me at all, and atleast some of the mods on here are really nice and seem to care, and were the reason I decided to come to A&E in the first place.
