ellengrace

I was feeling pretty rough last week, and what had been a nagging pain in my lower-back developed into quite extreme pain on Saturday and throughout Sunday. At first thinking it was breakthrough, I had been taking extra doses of Oramorph but there was only limited relief. I was in bed most of the weekend, feeling worse by the hour.

I thought I had reached another level in the progression of this disease. I spent some quiet time in prayers for acceptance.

Then I remembered reading one of Janmarie's posts in which she warned of the dangers of putting everything down to the progress of cancer...and how dangerous it was to overlook the possibility of infection.

Around midnight Sunday, I passed blood in my urine. I phoned my GP's on-call service, and they sent a doctor out immediately. From temps and pulse, and the frank appearance of infection as well as blood in a sample urine, he confirmed a bladder infection and gave me Amoxicillin, telling me to see my own doctor if there was no improvement within 48 hours......but the pain had gone and I began to feel quite well within that time.

I don't know how to lift a quote from someone else's thread, but the basis of Janmarie's advice was that we have to be aware, and assertive with our doctors, because so many cancer sufferers die unnecessarily within the first six months because of uninvestigated and untreated infections which run to sepsis and cause organ failure; and that this can happen within a matter of only a few days.
Tragically, this happens because of the mistaken assumption....by both the doctors and the patients themselves.... that symptoms are due to the "progression of the cancer".


I offer my thanks to Janmarie and to everyone else who shares their knowledge and experience in this forum. You are all in my prayers.