01/05/2025
May is Skin Cancer Awareness Month.
Skin Cancer robbed Fiona of the life she loved. It took from us the most beautiful, fun, loving, and kind soul.
It's coming up on 18 months since the world got a little darker, and in that time, I've had a number of people reach out and tell their skin cancer story. My advice has always been to never take no for an answer.
Fiona failed at almost every turn:
- Discharged as a cancer patient in September 2021 without ever being offered a scan. Only ever visually checked.
When she started to feel pain/tiredness around June 2023, she went to Dr and described her symptoms. All of which were on her left hand side - She was in floods of tears in his office. He made an appointment with an NHS physio.
- Physio told her she needed to do a couch to 5k to become more mobile. Or buy a bike and start cycling. She took that advice and was immediately looking at buying a bicycle. WHY? because she trusted the advice she was given.
After we received the initial diagnosis that Cancer had returned, she was put under the care of the Belfast Cancer Center. Fiona was called for 2 appointments on the same day in Belfast, one at 11 am and one at 7 pm. She was in excruciating pain. With nowhere to go, she slept in the back of my car for almost 5 hours before he had a second appointment that day. In too much pain to eat. Come 7pm we were waiting for her next appointment- by 7.15 she still wasn't called. I asked at 7.20pm what was going on??? The nurse replied, "we missed her name off the list."
During Fiona's second stay in hospital, we knew the Cancer had spread, but we were still unsure where to. On her way to get an x-ray, one of the nurses mentioned to Fiona about it being in her stomach. Fiona didn't know this either, did we.
When Fiona was discharged, I got a phone call from Fiona's doctor telling me to pick up the do not resuscitate notice from their office. As a family, we had never been told that this was going to be issued. No one discussed it with us. Even more worrying, Fiona didn't know of it and overheard the phone call.
Continues in comments....
