Hi, I lost my Mum on March 1st and have concerns about her treatment

Hi everybody,

I lost my dear mum on March 1st at the age of 89. She had previously been treated at the Royal Marsden in 2020 for cancer of the esophagus, but was given the all-clear early in 2021. She seemed to be making a good recovery and by the summer she was back to her normal weight, although she had lost a bit of mobility with the cancer battle and also because her activity classes she attended were closed during the lockdowns.  In September of last year, she went with a friend to a local pharmacy to get her covid booster jab. She had had a flu jab 7 days previously. She said that the pharmacist was very rude and behaved oddly to her and her friend. After being given their jabs, my mother asked what make of Covid vaccine they had been given, and was told by the pharmacist that he had given them both a flu jab! Perhaps unwisely, they both had their covid booster later that same day. 

My mother didn't seem to suffer any great side effects, except that she developed a throaty voice later that same week. Her GP advised her on the phone (she could not see her face to face due to lockdowns) that it was likely a throat infection. After a couple more weeks, the GP still seemed unconcerned and put not being able to shake it off down to my mother's age. She eventually prescribed her antibiotics, which did not work. So my mother just continued with her throaty voice, although she didn't experience any other symptoms.  However, she did gradually seem to be losing her appetite again and was losing weight. 

On December 27th, she complained of spots on her back, and we called the district nurse out and he diagnosed shingles. She was given anti-virals, and then some anti-nausea medication because she was complaining of feeling sick. As soon as I had given her the first dose of the anti-nausea medication, she began hallucinating, so we called an ambulance and she was taken to hospital. For several weeks, during which time we were not allowed to visit her, she seemed to be making slow progress, and the doctors seemed optimistic she would soon be all clear of the shingles and were arranging a physio to come to her home to help her regain her mobility upon release. Then at the start of February, my brother phoned her in the hospital, and she was very different, and sounded very depressed. The next day my brother phoned the hospital and was told by a nurse that 'they are treating her for the shingles, because they can treat that'. He asked the nurse what he meant by that, and the nurse said 'perhaps you should speak to the doctor here'. Later, my brother was put through to the doctor, who told him that a scan had revealed that not only had the cancer of the eosophagus returned, but it had spread to her liver, and so was terminal. My mother had not wanted us to know as it would worry us while we still couldn't see her.

It was another week until we were allowed to see our dying mother. For two weeks my brother and me took turns every day to visit in the afternoon and evening (only one visitor at a time). My mother would usually be sleeping when my brother visited in the morning. When I arrived, it would be time to wake my mother up for dinner. My mother was refusing food, and the nurses would try to force it into her mouth every night, with my mum screaming 'no, no'. My mother was delerious for most of the time, and obviously in a great deal of pain, but occasionally became lucid, and told me how much she loved me and that I was not to worry because she had had a good life. My mother also told me that the nurses were mistreating her, and pinched the skin of her arm to show me what she meant.

I wanted my mother to come home, and a hospital bed was delivered to her flat for that purpose. Unfortunately, my older brother who was her primary carer (as I live in Europe and couldn't visit for most of 2020 and some of 2021 due to the lockdowns), didn't think we could cope with giving her 24/7 care at home, and lied to me that the hospital staff had told him that.

At the end of February, we were told that a hospice had been arranged for mum as she had days to live. They offered us a Catholic hospice in Hammersmith. My mother was raised in Glasgow at a Catholic orphanage and had been badly abused there by the nuns. We looked at the Google reviews and saw claims of patients being hit by staff. We reluctantly asked the hospital if they could find another hospice. However, the next evening my mother was put on a morphine drip and died in the early hours. My older brother and I were in a cramped room with my dying mother for over 24 hours, with a noisy hospital ward next to us. After she died, we had to wait for nearly 2 hours for a doctor to come to confirm it. In the room next door, a patient was shouting at nurses that he needed attention. For two hours I had to listen to him screaming as I processed my mum's death. The doctor who confirmed it was very cold, almost inhuman. As we left the hospital, we thanked her and said goodbye, and she just coldly said - 'you're welcome'.

I'm sorry to have made this so long. I have actually left things out. I feel very traumatized by this. I also want to know if I should make a complaint about the pharmacy who gave my mother a (second) flu jab, instead of the covid booster, and whether it may have played a role in her cancer returning. I'm also upset that she wasn't given any scans after her all-clear, and nobody even suggested it even when she developed the throaty voice. And her treatment at the hospital (not Royal Marsden) was appalling, and possibly abusive.

I am a 51 year old male (my username Harmony Row is the street in Glasgow she grew up in). I know my mother 'had a good innings' and everything, but she was very active and enjoyed life right up until the lockdowns and her first cancer diagnosis. She was everything to me. I'm finding it difficult to cope at the moment.