Shocking discovery

Hi wesurvived welcome to the forum though I am so very sorry to hear of what has been happening for you. I'm.just checking if this all happened in 2022? My main reason for asking is that complaints in the NHS have time limits and I'm.not sure if this is the case in our case? My mother died a few years ago and I complained at the time she died as i knew something really untoward had happened and it took me 18 months and The Scottish Health secretary getting involved to get a conclusion to my complaint. I do however think you are right to make a complaint and see what happens. It's important that people do complain so then learning can take place? Sometimes all we want/need are answers. I hope that you get answers. Sending very best wishes Gail xx

Yes - there is a time limit. We are within the 1-year limit to complain about his death from sepsis - thank you for pointing it out. I edited to make it simpler and omitted the fact that he died in 2024 and the oesophageal cancer was diagnosed in 2023. I feel I owe my husband the justice of identifying what went wrong (as processes were clearly not followed) so that those who were involved never do it again to someone else. Thank you for responding and sorry to hear about your mother.

I always maintain although I never challenged it, that if Jay had some post chemotherapy or radiotherapy after his which I was told sucessful operation to get rid of all the cancer in January 2022 that he might just be still here. I questioned this at one of his post op appointments with his oncologist who told me no and if chemotherapy or any other post op procedure wasn't needed they don't do it. So you are going to go by their word because they are the specialist who know what they are talking about but there five months later his cancer was back after a follow up with his surgeon who took bloods and this showed his CEA levels had risen and further requested scan confirmed the cancer had come back. So i'm not expert but it was obvious some cells were still present and left to form again. Jay had type 2 diabetes also so it was like a double whammy but he got sepsis 4 times after his cancer came back and it was on the 4th bout along with his cancer (which became terminal) that took him in June 2023. Sometimes specialists are not always right. Hope you get some closure. 

Vicky x

I think you are right: we go by the word of the medical experts, and I don't think this is acknowledged sufficiently, but they choose to give us the optimistic outlook. Of course, we hear this because we want an optimistic outlook but we then risk being thought to be 'in denial' when that optimism is shown to be misplaced. I am disturbed as how in one consultation we can be told 'the cancer is curable' only for this to be contradicted in the next consultation to become 'palliative/terminal' without the consultant blinking. I think there should be much more nuanced discussion of the risks and benefits of treatments, including an acknowledgement that treatment delays are a significant risk. I think we could have been offered treatment more quickly at a different hospital, but this wasn't an option. Had we known about the danger of oral thrush, we could have even gone private. My husband's first cancer treatment was textbook; his second saw failings at every turn. Thank you for your response.