In August this year (2009) six of us went to Florida for a holiday. All was well and the first 4 days were brilliant but then my mum got what appeared to be a bad cold; runny nose and cough. The cough got worse as the holiday progressed although mum, a spritely 73 year old, marched around Disney like a teenager.
When we got home from Florida mums cough was very chesty and on August 24th she went to our GP who gave her a 7 day course of antibiotics. This didn't shift what was now thought to be a chest infection and mum was given a second 7 day course of antibiotics. Again the cough continued and this time a locum gave mum a short course of steroids and sent her for a chest x-ray. We were told to come back in 10 days for the results but 3 days later, on Friday October 9th we had a letter asking mum to go for a CT scan due to an abnormal chest x-ray. The CT scan was scheduled for the October16th but on the Sunday my mum started coughing up blood and I took her to hospital.
She had another chest x-ray, saw a doctor, had blood tests and saw a consultant before being given something that would stop the bleeding and going home to wait on the CT scan on the Friday. After the CT scan we then saw the consultant on the Monday and he told us mum had a growth on her left lung and needed a biopsy.
Since then things have moved on quickly. The biopsy was scheduled for the Thursday of the same week and then two weeks later we went back to the consultant to be told that mum had small cell lung cancer. The worst day of our lives!
We were told the only way forward was to have chemo and that an appointment had been made for us to see the oncologist on Thursday November 12th, one week later. In the mean time mums specialist nurse would be in touch. Christine visited us on Monday November 9th. She was lovely, very helpful and informative. So today is Thursday November 12th and we have seen the oncologist. We got a lot of information and mums chemo starts on Monday. Extensive sclc. 4-6 chemo followed by 5 radium to head and 5 to chest. I realised, then, that we were at the start of a long, rocky road and that I wanted to document it, hence this blog!
