As many of you already know, DD has been diagnosed with a rare gall bladder cancer and sadly the prognosis is poor. Up until now she has been under the excellent care of the Hepatobillary and Gastrointestinal team but is now in the hands of Oncology. Her first appointment to discuss chemo was yesterday afternoon. Oncology outpatients was very very busy and we were relieved not to be kept waiting as DD has to use a wheelchair and the waiting room was packed.
The oncologist swept into the consulting room and with the briefest of introductions launched straight into the bleakness of the case, using words like 'terminal', 'slim' and 'palliative' before we hardly had a chance to sit down. In short, they will attempt chemo in two weeks time but she was almost certain that DD would not be able to tolerate it due to her poor liver function in which case they would stop!! Any questions were answered by being handed a leaflet to read at home. DD was then instructed to get measured and weighed on the way out.
The HGB team had been encouraging using words like, 'hope' and 'positive'. When on the ward DD was treated with kindness and compassion. This encouraged her to do things like get her hair done, go out for lunch with us last Friday and even make a short trip to Tesco with her son. Now she's at rock bottom, deeply depressed and scared. It's been an awful day.
I know the NHS is stretched to the limits and an oncologist is not responsible for emotional support but I drove home fighting my anger at the damage done to DD's emotions.
Maybe I'm just oversensitive. We're all scared.
Army horses loose on London streets
Angela Rayner lashes out and calls Sunak “pint sized loser”.
