All in all I much preferred being in control of all my treatment rather than being helpless and reliant on doctors to reassure me about what was going on.  I remember that when my daughter Emma was in hospital, she had a similar experience.

Nurses and medical staff were often too busy to give us any time to reassure us about Emma’s symptoms.

One time when she was being sick – yet again – I grabbed hold of the nearest nurse and said, “How can you say she’s getting the right treatment when she hasn’t eaten anything she can keep down for nearly a week?”  She said she’d get the doctor to speak to us, but nobody appeared.

Not long afterwards, Emma caught a virus she’d had no protection against whatsoever.  I am grateful and relieved that I didn’t have to put up with the same scenario when my own health problems started.

Just before she was rushed to intensive care unable to breathe, the doctor had visited her and pronounced that the tumour was shrinking.  That did not comfort us much as she had a high temperature and was getting no nourishment.  She also had a bad infection that no amount of antibiotics could shift.

She had to go on a ventilator and entered a comatose state, so the cancer did not actually kill her, but her treatment did.  Her death was recorded as an acute respiratory failure and septicaemia – and so was not included in the cancer statistics.  I have since found out that cancer-related deaths are often attributed to other causes, to make the statistics appear better than they actually are.

This post is part of a weekly series in which Sue Insole describes her health journey.  Click here to read her earlier posts.  

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