Physical symptoms of grief

How far in are you kathy its 4 months for me on tuesday just need to make it through christmas xx

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Cadge, neatly 8 weeks so early days for me. He had just one week in hospital where they couldn’t treat his terminal cancer, we didn’t have a clue how sick he was. It was devastating and heartbreaking. Thank you for asking, this forum has been a life saver x

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@Kathy6. So similar to me. Norman diagnosed stage 3 bowel cancer on Thursday. Went into hospital Sunday as he started bleeding. Died 8 days later. After they told us cancer terminal and spread to liver and couldn’t stop bleeding. Due to my physical limitations I couldn’t spend very much time with him but he did have lots of visitors plus signed some papers from our financial advisor which will,leave me better off by 4k per year. He was still able to communicate with people until Saturday before he died but on sunday before he died when I saw him he didn’t know I was there he was on so much morphine.

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So sorry it was very sudden for my husband too :cry: he was 54 he had a cardiac arrest while we were sleeping it was so traumatic xx

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It’s such a shock isn’t it, and unbearable that they can be so ill but it doesn’t show, I thought we had many more years ahead of us. We moved to the coast 2 and a half years ago, loved it but that dream has gone now. So sorry that you went through a similar dramatic and rapid illness with your husband. Keep strong xx

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Cadge, that must have been a terrible shock, I don’t know how you cope, I’m so sorry how heartbreaking for you xx

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I bet it was :frowning: poor you xxx

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@Kathy6. To be honest I should have pushed him to see the doctor sooner. He was starting to look jaundiced. He wasn’t eating properly but he didn’t tell me about some things. He died June 6th . 2 days before his 71st birthday. It was our golden wedding anniversary on 14th July. Still cry at least once a day but have to move forward. It was still a total shock to hear stage 3 Thursday to terminal Sunday. Immediately discussed what he wanted for a funeral and wake and disposal of certain items. In the end they couldn’t stop the bleeding so officially it wasn’t the cancer that killed him.

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Yeh we moved to the countryside ! And now i think why did i bother ? Without him what does it mean ? Nothing … i would live anywhere as long as he was here … but hes not is he ;( and ive gotta try make some sort of life for myself xxxx

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@Deb5 @Kathy6 it was i did cpr for 20 minutes till the ambulance arrived they put him in a coma but we at to switch the machines off 2 days later he never woke up.
The worst day of my life :sleepy: he had a heart scan due in the april but we never got the appointment due to a back log they say i feel really angry. My soul mate gone.
Lots of love to you both :heart: xx
Just to add i keep waking up and checking my pulse because i keep thinking im going to have one too.

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Aw … Good old NHS - always so efficient ! They make me angry too ! Its down the pan ! Its like living in a third world country our health system is ! I knew for a while something not right with my husband … he wouldnt go to drs - finally got him to a&e 30th july 2022… In hospital 2 weeks for tests , finally decided he had blockage in bladder. Not sinister his consultant said to him … did biopsy stage 3/4 cancer. In end said he was too ill to treat … he passed 16th december ! all that wasted time they had to spot something ! Makes me so angry too !! Xxx

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I have lost total faith in our supposed health system. Last year when Keef was getting a bit too thin he had a number of blood tests and, apparently, none of them showed that he had any signs of cancer. He even went to A&E just before Christmas where they did a number of tests and sent him away with painkillers for his supposed frozen shoulder. Then in January he got rushed into hospital because he couldn’t breath and it wasn’t until about a week before he went that they told me the cancer he’d had in his forties had returned but by then, because he was so weak, they couldn’t/wouldn’t treat him. On top of that he got covid and some brain infection during his brief stay there. It all happened so quickly and I just feel if they had done their job properly and tested for the cancer earlier then he would still be here. I totally agree it makes me so very angry now.

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I totally agree … :frowning: “done their job properly” !!!

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Oh im so sorry thats awful it makes me so angry its a total let down it really is its shocking so many people suffering it shouldnt be happening :broken_heart: so sorry we are all here xxx

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Unfortunately, I also have a very poor experience of the NHS. It almost feels like it is taboo to criticise the NHS, but it is not the people, it is the system as a whole that feels utterly broken. It is a wonderful institution, of course, but not everyone in it is a saint as the general consensus seems to be - we have encountered some horrendous people at all levels of it, albeit the vast majority have been wonderful. My wife suffered from back pain for several months prior to her diagnosis of secondary breast cancer. She was passed around from one department (physiotherapy, osteopathy etc) to another with weeks and sometimes months between appointments. Eventually, after she collapsed at home with a cracked vertebrae, she was admitted and later diagnosed with bone metastasis. Having had breast cancer 9 years earlier, it feels like this should have been flagged up earlier given that unexplained back pain is one of the main indicators of bone metastasis. Once diagnosed, she was handed over to palliative care for pain relief while waiting on an oncology appointment (which never came). Thankfully, we have family BUPA cover through my employer - once they took over, everything just happened within days. She ended up being discharged from palliative care for over a year because her treatment went so well initially. I genuinely believe we were “lucky” to get that extra year of decent quality of life for her before the disease ultimately took her from me.
Take care.

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Seems that you too had the same unfortunate missed diagnosis as we had. When Keef had got lymphoma in his forties he still worked in the city so had private medical insurance which meant things got dealt with quickly and he was in remission within 5 years. Unfortunately after he got made redundant in 2008 we never had private health care again, but I do wonder if we had that maybe something could have been picked up earlier. He spent about 3 weeks in our very grubby local hospital where he was treated like an idiot and ignored, it was almost as if he was an inconvenience to them, until he eventually went. We’d tried to get him into the local hospice near the end and on the final day when myself and my daughter went to visit they had taken off any medical care, such as his feeding tube, painkillers and any other assistance. When we asked why they said it was because he was possibly being moved that weekend to the hospice and so they had to withhold treatment! That night he went and I honestly think this withdrawal of care added to his speedy demise. I know I shouldn’t be bitter but I have all of those ifs and buts in my head!

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There are a lot of these lack of diagnosis stories on this forum, it’s tragic :broken_heart:

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Yeh i wish id gone private but it took hold so quick because the NHS messed about … 6 weeks from diagnosis to him going … i dont like to think sbout it tbh … too sad …

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Mine too. Last year given the all clear, go and enjoy Christmas. No need to scan as we got it all out.
This year, he didn’t feel too well. We eventually got a private scan it showed the cancer had spread everywhere. He was offered palliative chemo, but got a blood clot . If they had put him back on blood thinners straight away, he might have been able to have it and been given more time. If they’d scanned earlier….
The end of life care was good though,(different hospital ) and certainly better than the help from our local hospice.

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I honestly try not to think of it as a mis-diagnosis, rather a delayed diagnosis. It would eat me up if I thought it could have been prevented. I’m sure it would still have happened but perhaps she could have been spared the trauma of the vertebrae fracture if it had been picked up earlier. This responded very well to radiotherapy and bone strengthening infusions, so possibly could have arrested the spread somewhat. Who knows? Ultimately, it was the liver metastasis that could not be treated effectively and that is what took her in the end.
Just for balance, her initial treatment for her primary breast cancer was all on the NHS and was superb - absolutely no issues or delays at any stage. This was about 9 years ago though, so perhaps the service was not on its knees back then.

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