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Alaric
Damn kids! Get off my island!
in Zocalo v2.0
today my mother died after a long illness
she was diagnosed with bladder cancer in January 05.
Since was born in 1918 the doctors here basically wrote her off despite the fact she was quite fit in other respects and so she received no treatment other than pain relief.
I need something to blame right now so I blame them for putting no effort in. Last november she collapsed because of a massive blood clot in her right leg. It caused the leg to swell to twice normal size yet despite the fact we kept pointing at it saying "look at her leg, its really swollen! " they did nothing.
2 weeks later she came home, my sister-in-law took one look at her and said "blood clot" so back up to the hospital, get a scan and had it confirmed.
Useless bunch even said "how did we miss that?"
there's more but it'll have to wait
she was diagnosed with bladder cancer in January 05.
Since was born in 1918 the doctors here basically wrote her off despite the fact she was quite fit in other respects and so she received no treatment other than pain relief.
I need something to blame right now so I blame them for putting no effort in. Last november she collapsed because of a massive blood clot in her right leg. It caused the leg to swell to twice normal size yet despite the fact we kept pointing at it saying "look at her leg, its really swollen! " they did nothing.
2 weeks later she came home, my sister-in-law took one look at her and said "blood clot" so back up to the hospital, get a scan and had it confirmed.
Useless bunch even said "how did we miss that?"
there's more but it'll have to wait
Comments
It makes me angry to hear that she didn't get treatment because of her age. That's one of those things badly wrong in this world.
I lost my grandfather a few months ago last year due to a cancer as well.
- PJH
from what your saying, thats appalling treatment you and your mum recieved there!
Was that public health or private?
Damn idiots.
thankyou all for your kind thoughts.
I guess I'm a little calmer now and maybe I was not being entirely fair to them. I'll try to give an objective account and you can draw your own conclusions
When she was 1st diagnosed, it was pretty much by accident, they were looking for something else.
They scraped the inside of the bladder and flushed the bladder with radioactive fluid to remove the growth that was there in the hope that it was self contained (this would be a stage 1 bladder cancer) they have to repeat this periodically (not that they did but that was actually Mum's decision for reasons that may become plain)
Unfortunately the growth was not a stage 1. It had grown into the wall of the bladder (3 roots if I remember rightly)
After the meeting with the specialist Mum said "they've written me off"
Now that wasn't entirely obvious to me at the time. They did (reluctantly) offer the option of surgery to remove the bladder but Mum turned that down. The doctors were quick to encourage this. "she might die during the operation and she'll be in pain for 12 months while she recovers and she might die of something else anyway. " and yet she was fit in other respects "the blood pressure of a 20 year old" is a direct quote from her GP for example.
Their logic is flawed. Cancer is incredibily painful and without treatment it is terminal so the Do-Nothing option is a death sentence with pain that only ever gets worse whereas the TrySomething stands a chance of giving her years more life with pain that will eventually fade and to quote from them "we can go a long way with pain control" (even though that was part of their DoNothing logic!
I've read a bit on the subject since then.
There are other ways to treat it. Maybe some were not appropriate to this case, maybe some just dont have much chance of success but all of them stand more chance than nothing.
Anyway, time passes and it gets to the point where mum is pretty much bed-ridden. She has to be helped to the bathroom at first and then she has to use a commode and then she has to be helped to the commode and then I have to lift her onto the commode. This disease strips away all dignity for the individual.
then they fit a catheter
All during this time, over a period of months since november 05 the support services have been good at supplying equipment, adjustaqble bed, oxygen, wheelchair and wheeled zimmerframe-thingy and nurses.
This is all good, no complaints there.
As I mentioned the pain only ever gets worse as the cancer grows. The doctors supplied painkiller tablets at first (cocdomol)
A side-effect of this is constipation. They then switched to patches (Fentanyl - these should be less constipating but it did seem that they caused mum to grow very confused and sleepier)
Stronger and stronger patches were used, all the time trying to control the pain so it went from 12.5 mcg/hr up to 100
She was still in pain but she could talk and deep inside she was still herself (there are stories for another time, maybe) despite the confusion.
On Friday morning she was talking to me
On Friday afternoon they fitted a pump to dispense a cocktail of drugs (including morphine)
she slept from then until Saturday evening when her eyes opened briefly. She smiled at her friend and our relatives who came that day.
She was dead by 7am Sunday.
Now, it was inevitable, based on everything that had gone before. The most likely cause of death was a shutdown of all the other organs because of what the cancer was doing but they had done a blood test the week before and there had been no change there.
So I do not yet know what she actually died of. Her mouth was full of mucus (her lungs were filling up but up until Friday she was strong enough to cough it up. Sunday night, she wasn't) did she choke? drown on the fluid in her lungs? if so did the fact that she was so dosed up with Morphine that she could no longer cough contribute to the problem?
I don't know
yet
the doctor comes today in an hour.
[B]My condolences. :(
Was that public health or private? [/B][/QUOTE]
Public. a bit like the NHS in the UK
you still have to pay for home visits by the GP but everything else seems to be taken care of.
I am sorry for your loss.