Cancer care

I’ve just been hearing on the radio encouragement for people to report, & fight to have checked out, any cancer symptoms. I find myself thinking about my own treatment since I first discovered a lump in my shoulder at the end of August 2019.

 

I saw the GP at 9.15am the very day I called to make an appointment. Less than a week later I was off to the hospital for a mammogram & other tests & had a diagnosis. By October I had started chemotherapy. I completed that in early January this year. Although the lump had shrunk, by then it was already re-growing. After a second opinion at Christie’s in Manchester, I was operated on just before shutdown in March. By June I was having post-operative radiotherapy. It was then I discovered Lump appearing on my collar bone. I mentioned it to my oncologist &, despite the difficulties of coronavirus, I was called into Kendal & was diagnosed as having yet more secondary cancer. It was still July. August found us rushing down to Manchester again to see if they could operate again to be told there was no point. Before August was even over I was back on chemo.

 

I cannot say my treatment has been unduly delayed because of the virus. Clearly, when I was awaiting my op in Manchester, they were preparing for the onslaught of patients to arrive. However, that did not stop my op. Equally it’s safe to say all the treatment I’ve received since the virus really took hold has been prompt, even if it hasn’t worked. I feel I have no cause to complain.

 

My cousin, on the other hand, I feel more dubious about. She lives in a different part of the country, near Leicester. She first saw her GP with suspicions of cancer in early June. She wasn’t even offered chemo until mid-September by when it was too late. She sounds as though she is failing fast now. Admittedly she has a worse form of cancer – pancreatic cancer – but surely that means she needed faster attention if she was to have any hope of survival.

 

What really surprised me was how empty the Rosemere Centre, where the radiotherapy took place, was. I had been previously in 2016, then it was heaving with people. Now there was barely half a dozen patients waiting for treatment. Were people refusing to come in for fear of the virus? I asked. Apparently so. Personally I was far more confident that cancer would be more likely to kill me than the virus so I went for treatment.

 

I would agree the sentiment of the radio programme. If you find a lump or have any other reason to suspect cancer, get to your GP soon. Do not leave it. If necessary push to get those appointments. You cannot afford to just wait. Cancer is a far more certain killer than coronavirus.