So when you enter the world of “Cancer”…and by that I mean really enter…not just sit there & think oh “F*^$k” I have Cancer, you kind of start to do this weird kind of sympathising.
See, when you get diagnosed you are just angry. Angry, & hurting. Shocked. All kinds of shocked.
Then, as a patient – and as family members of the recently diagnosed you do that “looking for blood thing” – search for those responsible, who was the most negligent – who messed up the most.
Who allowed me to get to THIS point??
Don’t get me wrong……there were (at least in my case) epic mess up’s….but as a patient – you are so desperate for help…for care…for support & understanding, that initially, you don’t really look at the “medical negligence element” that closely.
I haven’t.
I probably won’t….I should….but I probably won’t…..
What I mean is that, I understand that with my Melanoma(s), in particular, the symptoms were “atypical”. So the standard warning signs, that everyone else looks for to say this is a problem / that is a problem – didn’t really count for my Melanoma. My Melanomas – both of them – ticked all of the bad boxes…they were discoloured, they had ragged edges, they were oversized….everything was wrong with both of them – yet under the Dermatascope they looked acceptable, and so were allowed to continue to grow.
I have spent the last 2 years (almost 2 years) trying to not be angry…trying not to feel as though I should have been looked after better…and then I have lived in this “Cancer” bubble …where you end up believing that actually it is just you, and just your Cancer, and that you have been left out in the dark.
Melanoma has been for many years considered so unimportant and so “rare” that it hasn’t had funding….or media attention….or money for research…or notice….or….well you know….anything.
But it isn’t just Melanoma.
I spent most of Saturday in A&E with my son…he feel off a slide the wrong way, and broke his arm just above the elbow.
Yet it was a Saturday. A hospital should be “staffed” on a weekend……but it wasn’t.
5 ½ hours with a child with a broken limb…in an A&E department…surrounded by dozens of other children…crying…in pain….it isn’t acceptable.
I understand the NHS is overstretched. I accept it isn’t just “Cancer” that is short of resources,…but just last week Jeremy Hunt turned around to the NHS & said “ no more money until you deliver”….and I sort of want to shout…deliver what? In what era? Do you have any idea or comprehension what is actually really happening in hospitals on a daily basis?
Staffing is the issue. First you don’t have enough of them…then the ones you have are so unhappy they cease to work effectively.
The problems can’t be fixed just by throwing money in at the top.
It bothers me so much because I can “with my business head” see logical resolutions….yet the issues are there…and the NHS…the very thing we believe in & have trusted for generations…is failing us…failing me……failing to look after my son properly & it makes me very, very cross…especially when the solutions to the problems are so unbelievably close.