Mum diagnosed with secondary breast cancer but really worried about level of care

Hello, my first time on here.

 

My mum had been having back pain for 5-6 weeks and the GP was no good, she was starting to get abdomen pains as well, so we took here into A+E on Thursday - tests all day and after a CT scan they found a lump in her breast and shadows on her liver and spine. Huge huge shock, nobody had any idea of this. She is 72 and healthy up til now.

 

It is now Tuesday and after several days in the hospital on paracetamol and morphine (which hasn’t completely controlled the pain) she has been sent home to await the next meeting of the multi-disciplinary team (next meeting tomorrow - a full week after diagnosis) she has been promised biopsies twice but they have been withdrawn to wait for this meeting. The nurses have all been really nice but nobody specialist has been to see her, and we are all terrified, trying to support each other, but with very little information. They won’t even use the word ‘cancer’ although that is pretty obvious, she has never had a biopsy so they will not confirm. They suggest there ‘might’ be a biopsy later in the week.

 

Am I just being impatient with the NHS or is this a poor level of service and can we do anything about it? Is the outlook that bleak that they won’t prioritise her for diagnosis or treatment? Help… we are desparate…

 

 

 

now we have been told that the multi-disciplinary team meeting for those patients who haven’t had biopsies is on Friday and that mum is on the agenda - we have been fobbed off again - and that there may be an appointment to follow up that meeting perhaps in ‘one or two weeks’.

 

can anyone advise me on what to do here? I am really concerned that we are receiving a poor level of care for Mum and given wrong information all the time…

 

Thanks for any attention or help that anyone out there can give us.

nk you. We have followed up on PALS with the hospital and Mum met the consultant yesterday, further tests over the next week. we are finally getting some action!

Would recommend anyone in this situation gets in touch with the hospital’s PALS team.