Anger and frustration

Honestly I think a lot of people who go through a loss will inevitably feel anger, anger towards themselves, their loved one, the doctor and nurses, their family. I'm probably no different, I recently lost my mum...but I hate to say that she died of cancer, instead she died of negligence over her life, especially over the last few years. She had been diagnosed in 1993 with breast cancer, initially being fobbed off by a doctor who told her "you are too young to get cancer" and told her to be on her way. She went for a second opinion to find that she indeed had breast cancer and was quite advanced, over a period of about 7 years she got partial removal and then a full removal of her breast.

Life was quiet for about 6 years, however she started to have severe headaches, falling asleep more often and would black out. She kept going to her doctors who kept giving her painkillers and advised her it was a migraine, she kept this up for a good 12 months I would say until it came to a head when she couldn't write her name or walk in a straight line. The doctor thankfully seen the error in their diagnosis and she was diagnosed with a brain tumour that was the size of a golf ball. She undergone surgery and radiotherapy to treat it and she was released from hospital....personally I feel that the NHS should do more after care for their patients rather than discharging them within a week of a major brain operation, something that would affect her later.

Things were quiet for another few years, she regained pretty much all that she lost after her brain operation and she was fit as a fiddle again, until she started suffering from a continuous cough...I can't remember much of this as I was at University at the time, I do remember telling her to check it out as she was coughing in the middle of the night and I'm sure she had went multiple times to get it checked out to which they had found nothing untoward. She eventually ended up swelling up and they admitted her again to find that she had an inoperable tumour on the chest. Personally I thought that this would be the end, however she fought on, undergoing both radio and chemotherapy together to blast the tumour and prevented it from growing again..

Another few years of normality for us, but easter came around and her face started sloping to one side. She didn't want to go to the doctors and wanted to enjoy easter, but I insisted for her to go an out of hours doctor, she relented. Initially she didn't want me to go in and her plan was to tell the doctor she was ok, however I went in and told him her history to which he was able to quickly deduce that she might have another brain tumour. She got tests and scans done and found that she indeed had a brain tumour, this one however would spell for her decline. They had operated and removed it, giving her radiotherapy too, however her voice was slightly quieter than before. She was released within a few days of the operation and that was pretty much it. Sure she had scans done and such, but nothing really happened regarding her voice.

Over the years she complained of having a "lump" in her throat as she swallowed and went to a speech and language therapist for this, they got tests and scans done on her and even gave her an endoscope down her throat but found nothing cancerous. She kept complaining about this lump that I kept telling her it was more than likely in her head as a result of her last brain tumour....and more importantly the radiotherapy that occurred after....how right I was. Over the years she ended up having another tumour on a gland on the kidney, this was operated and successfully removed....only to have the same thing happen to the other gland. They decided to gave her oral chemo drugs in order to combat this, which was horrible, making her weak....messing with her bowel and such.

Now comes to the last few years and where my anger stems greatest from. Her sister who is was a nurse constantly was asking her how she was, telling her what she should be doing etc etc, honestly thinking she was giving the best possible advice. After mum passed I had found documentation from her for painkilling drugs for terminal cancer patients....firstly she was never actually diagnosed terminal so to tell your sister that she may as well be dying while she still got fight in her is horrible. It really made mum feel depressed, I even seen some of the texts from mum saying that she "hadn't kicked the bucket yet". Painkiller I believe helped with her decline though.

Over the last year she had suffered from a pain in her arm, she put it down to stress and then eventually carpel tunnel from working at home with lockdown. Her sister continuously texting her "have you taken your painkillers"....masking the symptoms for something she doesn't even know she has. She had went to multiple doctors, mainly regarding joints and arthritis who told her it was nothing but "wear and tear". She believed them and kept taking painkillers...mainly codeine (and opioid based painkiller) for her pain in her arm. During this time she ended up having increased chest infections as well and would end up catching on certain foods (mostly cold/ice cream) and would put her asthma in overdrive. She kept on going back to the doctors up until a few months prior to her passing who again said there was nothing wrong with her arm.

Over the last 6 months of her life she found that she had multiple brain tumours, I believe that this was mainly due to the fact that she was on painkillers over the last year which has weakened her immune response and caused things to pick up (there is research done on the connections) She had undergone radiotherapy and the treatment appeared to halt the growth of her tumours.

The month or so before she passed her pain was so great that her sister came down and told her to go to the out of hours doctor, I believe her sister requested this doctor to give her morphine and pregabalin, which would affect each other. This would be the case and caused her to lose consciousness and collapse in her bedroom hitting her head square on a hard wooden chair. She would start going down from here, her inability to swallow (that would go into her lungs), her pain in her arm would increase. 

She would go down and get another check up on her treatment of her brain tumours when she had showed them her painfully swollen arm they were quick to deduce that she had a blood clot, a DVT of the arm per se. They quickly started on giving her an anti clotting agent that she would have to be on for about 6 months and would be injected into her from my fatter. She had only started this for about a week when she was unable to swallow and when she did she started gargling and spitting up froth from her mouth. She was quickly admitted into hospital to find out what was wrong with her. Going over the last year or so I should have spotted her Dysphagia, she pretty much had this since her second brain tumour when she had the lump in her throat and such...I had told her about the condition years ago and she had advised her speech and language therapist of it but nothing had ever been done and this would end up killing her. 

She was in there for a few nights, I was FaceTiming her every night, she was on a NBM (nil by mouth) regiment and was getting fluids intravenously. On her third day her speech and language therapist came to see her and got her to drink water and then some yogurt. That night when I spoke she was coughing a lot and was quite annoyed with what they had to do, she did say however that they would be back tomorrow with her consultant to see how she was coming along....they never came. I spoke to her the night before she took a turn for the worst and asked did anyone come, she said no, she was flustered....breathing quickly and coughing harder than before...I asked about the speech and language therapist if they came, to which her reply was "don't talk to me about them". She was clearly very distraught but there was nothing I could really do, I trusted the nurses and doctors in there to help her and keep her comfortable.

The following morning came quite quickly, we got a call to say that she had a turn for the worst, we got down there to find that we couldn't go in...they had to make sure she hadn't got COVID. When they finally stabilised her and found that she was negative they advised us that she had suffered from aspiration pneumonia (ironically this would be the last time they would use aspiration...but change it to simply pneumonia). After my father seen her I went down to see her too, the noise was immense, she was wearing a nebuliser mask to help with her breathing, her eyes rolling to the back, but she saw me and winked...I knew she was still there and fighting. She always fought for us throughout what she had though, we were always her reason for living.

She had stayed strong for a good few days, trying to fight the pneumonia she acquired from drinking and eating food from her speech and language therapist who never watched to make sure she was ok. But the pain in her arm and everywhere else for that matter was too great, she didn't want to be in pain anymore and request to ensure that she wasn't in pain in her dying days. I had only found this out through her consultant however this was after I had found a note that she had made my father write regarding her treatment the night she went downhill, she told him to write: They were cruel. Had to wait for 4 hours in panic. This happen twice on night shift. Pressed buzzer 4 times. I had brought this up with her consultant and the nurse that was there, they both denied this happening which led me to lodge a complaint regarding her treatment. How could they have left her there drowning and panicking, not doing a thing about it?! It infuriated me and response that I got from the lead nurse was less than satisfactory. They knew she had issues swallowing, they knew she was spitting up frothy sputum...but they still went ahead and fed her food.

She stayed with us for just over a week, and it wasn't as painless as she wanted it to be with her last words to me "shoot me". I'm sure it will haunt me for some time, how that week went, how we stayed over every night to make sure that she was fine and after how the nurses treated her that night. She wanted us to stay with her and we did, I don't regret that for a second, I stayed there more than my dad, didn't sleep a wink, trying to keep her in bed when she wanted to get out after being told by the nurses she needed to move around because of the sores she had.

You can see why I would be angry, I had wrote one final complaint back to them and they never replied, never phoned me at all. They want to deny all responsibility of what happened to save their hides, I honestly don't want any of them to lose their jobs....I just want an honest answer from them of what happened and not a kick around. I'm also angry about how this was missed by her previous appointments regarding her blood clot in her arm and more importantly the aftercare after her brain tumour to help with her speech and swallowing....both never happened. I'm angry about her sister who thought she knew what she was talking about, goading mum into painkillers as she was certain her pain was due to her cancer when it wasn't, it was simply masking her blood clot in her arm. With her on these opioid based painkillers helped decrease her immune functionality and further her dysphagia symptoms....I'm really not happy about it.

I'm sorry if I've been too honest about this, but it's been eating me up, and before you say I should get counselling...I have done that, I don't think my anger is anything to do with the loss but how she was actually treated in her last years....the only thing counselling could help me is to get to terms of the "what if" scenarios and how I keep thinking if I didn't move out I could spot this and helped her....but that's about it. Am I wrong to be angry at everyone after everything she’s been through? I really worry it’ll come to a head someday and I’ll confront her sister or something...I know I won’t, but I fear I could...