Feeling let down - anyone ever felt like suing?

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Hi there

I’m new to this resource and to cancer really, diagnosed last August after a life long battle of pushing the GP for answers as to why I have felt this way. After finally getting somewhere, I was diagnosed with MTC. A really rare and incurable thyroid cancer, which has quite literally changed my life. Though it’s slow growing, that’s one positive. My consultant believes it’s been around since I was a teenager, so over a decade, of slow growing cancer getting me to the point of no return. I can’t explain how often I went to the doctors pushing for answers to constantly be told I was just anxious or had a stressful job

I can’t help but feel soooo angry that I was so let down. Had someone listened to me earlier, maybe it would have been caught at a time where my prognosis would be completely different and my life wouldn’t look so bleak

has anyone ever thought about suing? Is that even worth it I don’t know? How do we stop this from happening with the NHS where we’re constantly fobbed off

Barley 16 days ago

So sorry to hear this but no I would never sue the nhs we need i5 too much

k9crazy 14 days ago

Hi MTCfighter, I can't believe when I read your post, it could have been me writing it! For almost a decade I kept returning to my GP with declining health and in the end debilitating symptoms the most serious was the fatigue, cognitive decline, muscle wasting, low mood. I went from running 10Ks and competing in dog agility around the country, to hardly being able to walk around a field! My GP just kept telling me it was menopause!! I even told her years ago I felt like I had a lump in my throat when swallowing and was told it was stress! Eventually nearly a decade later a lump appeared on my neck and I finally got a referral to ENT. Turned out like you, it was Medullary Thyroid cancer that had by this point spread to lymph nodes both sides of neck and chest. I had to have a 6 hour major surgery and am now suffering chronic complications from nerve damage which has totally affected my quality of life, not to mention financially as I've had to cut down work.

So to the point of your post, I simmered on this with immense anger, grief and frustration at the system and no one being held accountable, until 18months later when I realised my complications could be permanent. So I got my medical history from my GP practice and contacted a top medical negligence solicitor. (I was told the GPs have insurance so this doesn't directly affect the NHS in a financial sense as that previous reply said). He looked at my case and unfortunately came to the conclusion that as it is such a rare cancer and as the GP had done basic thyroid TSH blood tests (which of course we now know MTC won't show up on) it would be hard to prove negligence! (There was curiously no mention in my notes of the swallowing lump I had presented with years before!) So I gave up. That's not to say you shouldn't try, your case may have differences to mine. In fact someone said I should try a different solicitor!

I still feel some responsibility needs to be taken and education needs to happen and I still may put in a complaint to my GP practice. I don't want anyone else to be dismissed as I was and made to feel like I was a neurotic or hypochondriac woman for so long. I can't count the number of times I left the GP practice in tears over those years.

Medullary Thyroid cancer dx May 2023

MTCfighter 13 days ago in reply to k9crazy

Wow! I can’t believe how similar our stories are and for the cancer to be the same too!! That’s crazy. I’m so sorry to hear this and that you know exactly what I mean.

You worded it so much better than me and hit the nail on the head, it’s when I realised this is now my life forever that I felt something needs to change!! Especially as women!!