Her Mother Died 12 Hours After Being Diagnosed With Cancer

[n2doc]

by Danielle Mantia / xoJane

There is a scar that runs the entire length of my left arm, wide and treacherous at the elbow, then narrows to a thin white line as it cuts across my palm.

I was eight and running on the way to a baseball game with my father when I fell on some rocks in the parking lot. He slung me over his shoulder and carried me to the first aid station. It wasn’t until I watched him throw his blood-soaked jacket into a trash can and looked down at my arm, the bone popping out at the elbow, that I realized how hurt I was.

In October 2013, I was 30 years old, sitting on the floor of my room in my house in Portland, folding laundry, when my mother called to tell me she had pneumonia. I absent-mindedly folded a T-shirt while I asked her if she was drinking enough liquids.

At the time, I worked with seniors and was dating a Director of Health Services so I was well versed in the logistics of dehydration.

“No, you don’t understand. I’m in the hospital.”

more

http://time.com/3716563/mother-cancer-diagnosis/

[dilby]

1. That is exactly how i want to go right there.

I want it to be quick and over, nothing that drags out for years or burdens my children and loved ones emotionally and financially.

[AtomicKitten]

4. I completely agree.

I was visiting my nextdoor neighbor one day about a year ago. Her 42-year-old son was there. All of a sudden he grabbed his chest and hit the ground. Boom. It was over. It was one of the most surreal experiences of my lifetime and a particularly sad one because my neighbor had lost her husband to asbestos-related cancer six months prior.

[Fumesucker]

2. The primary care physician was apparently the origin of the problem.

The vast medical mishaps that had brought us here, an entire chain of terrible choices made by her regular doctor who dismissed my mother’s pain first as “old age” and then begrudgingly sent her for lab tests. Those tests were never done because when she showed up, the lab guy turned her away, stating, “You are allergic to iodine, I can’t perform this test. He needs to order you different lab work. How did he not notice that?”

And then her doctor, possibly annoyed with my persistent mother, over the phone prescribed her antibiotics for a urinary tract infection. After that course, still pain. So more, stronger antibiotics. Still pain. Another course of antibiotics so harsh that their names made my boyfriend wince as I recited them over the phone.

He told me he had never heard of them being given to someone not already in the hospital, being constantly monitored: They were too strong, they should have never been given. And then her body shut down. She drove herself to the emergency room, not wanting to bother my father. She didn’t understand what was happening either.

Her liver was failing and no one knew why. They suggested a transplant. They ran tests. Her lungs were filling up with fluid. They ran tests.

[daredtowork]

9. Primary Care Doctors are becoming THE problem

Primary Care Doctors are supposed to the quarterback of your care "team" - a large web of referral specialists. However, if you have a complex condition, the results of these referrals need to be coordinated.

Primary Care Doctors tend to double and triple book patients and see them for 15 minutes or less: they tend to demand that the patient give them only one symptom at a time, and then they don't see the patient again for at least a month. (The patient will only come back in a month if they are persistent). If the patient gets sick, then that temporary problem hijacks the visit, and the issue of the larger condition gets pushed down the road. If you are trying to get a larger chronic condition diagnosed, addressed, or documented - GOOD LUCK WITH THAT! It could take YEARS!!!

Last week I almost died after trying to see my Primary Care Doctor TWICE about the relevant problem. The first time our appointment was hijacked by paperwork I needed her to fill out. Then a nurse got me an urgent care appointment for the actual medical problem. But because it was urgent care and the the doctor was in an extra hurry, she didn't have time to refer to my medical history and didn't listen to what I was saying - she blew me off. Three days later I collapsed from a sudden drop in blood pressure and got treated to my first ambulance ride to the ER. I had been giving the Primary Care Doctor all she needed to know to at least take me off my blood pressure medications right away.

Stuff like this just makes me mad.

Here people are getting worked up about this woman's right to die with dignity when her real right was to get the cancer caught in a timely fashion by the Primary Care Doctor.

[Baitball Blogger]

10. Don't get me started.

I'll just add that I hope that they aren't forcing people to leave trusted physicans to select doctors that no one has properly vetted out.

[bbgrunt]

14. I hear you. This fractured, profit-driven medical system creates

more problems than it solves. Doctors don't have the time or inclination to deal with difficult or even semi-difficult situations when they are being judged and payed on the basis of how many patients they see and how many prescriptions they write.

[Curmudgeoness]

15. All the insurance ratings on my family doctor suck.

But when I checked why he was rated so poorly, it was only because he didn't have enough "efficiency". Meaning that he didn't push enough people through his office at breakneck speed.

And still I have to be a firm advocate for myself so that he doesn't minimalize my issues. Like when I was complaining about terrible indigestion that was constant, and he told me that was a common problem---just look at the drug store rows of antacids to see how widespread it is. Then I started to vomit some blood, so I got some in a container and took it into his office, because I didn't want to be ignored any longer. When I asked him if he wanted to see it, he said "not really". Well, I told him he was going to so that he understood that I was not just a complainer. He takes me seriously now. And I have a gastroenterologist.

[Delphinus]

13. When I read that,

it brought back memories of some friends and family members who have had that same experience. Doctors just didn't want to do a whole lot to investigate.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. Wow. What a story.

Thank you for posting this.

May she rest in peace, and may she somehow know that now that we know, we can perhaps do something if this should happen to us.

[Journeyman]

5. A gift to suffer such a short time, yet have time enough to be together . . .

But now I understand it was a gift for her to have suffered for such a short time and for us all to be together, pulled back from our far corners of the world to the place where we started.

In many respects, a good way to die.

[Liberal_in_LA]

6. yes. powerful story

[malaise]

7. One of my best friends died eleven days from diagnosis

She didn't have any pain - just discomfort at the end from water retention. She was yellow - her eyes, her nails, everywhere. Liver cancer is lethal. That was eleven years ago.

On Wednesday my cousin's widow is end her life - she has stage four ovarian cancer and planned the end for the 30th anniversary of her beloved husband's murder.
She planned everything - including the timing of her sons' births. She's planned this perfectly Some family members are upset - I support her 100%.

We're all going to die - enjoy life.

[libdem4life]

8. It was 1981 and the first year all of we girls, kids and grandkids could make it to Mom and Dad's

house for Christmas all at the same time. From all over the map. Mom had mentioned that Dad hadn't felt well, but he didn't look much different as I hadn't seen him for a while. He was being treated for diverticulitis. We had great photos taken, a wonderful time, everybody got along and what joy.

While there, my sister...whose husband was an MD where we lived on the West Coast, had a chance to talk with him, then called her husband. By the time we all got home, travel was arranged for my Dad to fly to LA and the hospital. He was admitted, operated on immediately, and they closed him back up...cancer in all the organs. He was only 69...3 years older than me now.

It was soooo hard because he still looked like himself. We were taking turns staying with him in the hospital. We all got to say our goodbyes as he was unconscious toward the end. He squeezed my hand. I was working that day, but took off to take my turn. When I got there, he had passed 15 minutes earlier.

He was an old country preacher in SE Oklahoma for 25 years and knew everybody for miles around. His funeral there filled the high school gym to overflowing with mourners. God called him home.

Thank you for the bittersweet memories...I believe they make us more human.

[Skidmore]

11. Very similar to what happened with my own mother.

She had complained for years of flank pain to her doctor who always told her that it was muscle pain from the heavy lifting she did as a nursing assistant in a nursing home. Toward the very end of her life, she called me to tell me she had the flu and couldn't shake it. I drove three hours to her house and you could see how sick she was just by looking at her face. You know the dark mask of severe illness that settles around the eyes. I called her doctor and demanded that we be seen. It took two days to get the truck with the imaging equipment to come to the town. She was diagnosed with renal cancer and died within a month and a half. I strongly believe that her symptoms were dismissed because she was older and did not have a lot of money. I still get angry when I think about it. I know that renal cancer is not a cancer that responds to treatments but still it would have helped a bit to know that her physician was paying attention to her as a patient.

[Curmudgeoness]

16. It isn't about not having much money as much as age.

The older all of us get, the harder it is for doctors to take our complaints seriously. My mother had good insurance, but she had the same issues. She could keep nothing down, nothing was passing through her, and they keep giving her shots for nausea and sending her home. After a month, I took her to the doctor and demanded he do something to find out what was wrong. I found out from the office staff that my sister, an RN from out of town, had also called and chewed them out. She was sent to the hospital, where they found a tumor blocking her colon.....a month had gone by and she was so weak by then that she had no chance.

[Omaha Steve]

12. My mom was in and out of the hospital for 2 years

At the end they finally found her massive cancer. She lasted 2 weeks in hospice.

Thanks for posting. K&R!

OS