Hi this is my first post,
My grandad was diagnosed with lung cancer on December 23rd and was given a few months to live. I thought I would share his journey to help other people see symptoms. It all started in January 2020 when he was feeling breathless. We went to the hospital 5 times until he was finally diagnosed with heart failure and eventually had a pacemaker fitted. The heart failure was causing fluid to to build up in his lungs. One of the main symptoms we noticed when fluid accumulated on his lungs was that he would start shivering violently and at the same time would get a UTI.
Then everything was good for a year and a half. From august 2020 to December 2021 he was definitely not as active as before, but was doing fine and we even went on holiday in August 2021. Then December 2021 came and he immediately started to go downhill. He became less and less active, started to eat less and less and eventually stopped coming downstairs. One thing that is important to note is that over the last year he had begun to lose his appetite, something we thought wasn’t serious but it definitely was. One Saturday he suddenly started shivering again so we called the ambulance but because he wasn’t shivering that badly they gave antibiotics and didn’t take him to hospital. He started to rapidly decline. He wouldn’t eat, spent most of the day sleeping and needed help getting out of bed. Finally we decided to take him to the hospital ourself. We were first told that his decline was because his heart failure had gotten worst and that they would alter his medication and he should be at home in a few days. However they then took a CT scan and informed us that they suspected he had lung and liver cancer. Due to his old age, my grandad is 88, and how frail he was no biopsy was done and no treatment was going to be given. He had a few months at most.
He comes home a week after being diagnosed and is worst than when he went to hospital. Unfortunately there was very little communication with the doctors but carers were provided and the second day he seemed a bit better. However an even bigger decline then started. He would have this urge to go to the toilet almost every half hour and was so restless during the night. He basically couldn’t speak to us and we started to get very concerned when he vomited a large amount. The day after we called the nurses who said he had very little time left. We wanted to make him as comfortable as possible so he was took to hospital where they said he has numerous infections on top of covid. I sit here now typing as today he went to hospital and the doctors don’t think he will make it. I guess the whole point of this is to look out for symptoms. Loss of appetite is a big sign. A hoarse voice is a big sign.
I understand my grandad has had a long life but none the less it hurts.
Hannah xxxxxx
