“She had a pulmonary embolism in her lung that they believed had broken off from pancreatic cancer. We had no idea she had cancer.”
Laura Nieass shares her mother-in-law's story, and how they only found out post-mortem that she even had pancreatic cancer.
My mother-in-law had previously had breast cancer in 1998 and survived. She was happy, had many other medical health issues but was looking forward to moving to a new area with us, we were all going to live together so we could look after her and she would be able to help out with her 2 grandsons.
About six months before she passed, she got an infection and went to see a different doctor than she normally sees. This doctor then said ” oh it’s probably due to you being type 2 diabetic”, she had not been told this and she was ” diagnosed” a year before this appointment but was not told. Her bloods were so high this other doc put her on medication.
"Ended up going to A&E on 20th November, they did a scan and said they believed it was her gallbladder causing her the problems, said to her it was her choice she could go home or stay and come back the next day to see a consultant."
The medication didn’t seem to be doing much so was put on a second lot. A few months before she died, she was getting so much pain in her stomach but still pushed on. Ended up going to A&E on 20th November, they did a scan and said they believed it was her gallbladder causing her the problems, said to her it was her choice she could go home or stay and come back the next day to see a consultant. She chose to go home as she had a dog she wanted to look after.
The next day she called us asking us to call an ambulance, we called the ambulance and they worked on her, but she sadly passed away at home with my husband (her son) by her side.
We requested a post-mortem and we got the results that she had a pulmonary embolism in her lung that they believed had broken off from pancreatic cancer. We had no idea she had cancer.