Since the start of the pandemic more than two years ago, there have been dozens of cases where people were misdiagnosed and not properly treated after visiting doctors. In most of these cases, people started proper treatment after a while, but unfortunately, for others these situations were fatal.
Few days ago, young woman decided to speak out about what she had been through last year when her husband died of cancer since he was not properly treated because he was misdiagnosed when he went to the hospital for the first time.
According to Newsweek’s report about the story few days ago, the 34-year-old K. Sharma was diagnosed with advanced bowel cancer in the first half of last year. At the time, Sharma and his wife had just moved into their first home in England and were expecting a baby. The news was nothing but devastating for the couple since bowel cancer is a condition more typically diagnosed in people over 50.
Speaking to Bowel Cancer UK recently, Sharma’s wife, Nimisha, shared her experience with the public how happy the couple was when they learned they are expecting their first child. Despite the pandemic, they were positive and excited starting new chapter in their lives, but everything changed when Sharma was diagnosed with a shocking stage 4 bowel cancer.
“After living a healthy lifestyle throughout lockdown last year, he began to experience sudden, abdominal cramps in the middle of his stomach. I remember the first episode vividly – it came on so suddenly and he was keeled over in pain. It lasted a few hours and we didn’t think much of it,” she said to BC UK.
The pain was gone that night, but after a week, the cramps and pain came back. They went to hospital where several tests were made and they had to wait for a few hours to get the results. By the time the results were ready, Sharma’s pain was gone. Thinking that Sharma might have gall stones, which is nothing serious, Sharma had been booked in for an ultrasound in the upcoming days.
Several days later, the ultrasound showed no gall stones and the couple returned to their GP doctor since Sharma still had pain for days. The couple’s GP told them Sharma probably has irritable bowel syndrome or acid reflux. Sharma was given a mix of pills which worsened his condition and pain in the period to come, and he even started to lose weight drastically. Sharma and his wife knew the symptoms were not taken seriously by doctors up to that point.
“It was extremely frustrating because it didn’t feel like IBS or acid reflux and his symptoms continued to get worse,” Nimisha said to BBC. “There weren’t any investigations being done, there weren’t any referrals made for anything further or for a scan. We felt we were being dismissed and overlooked, whether that was down to him looking healthy, his age or the assumption that because he was so young and healthy it couldn’t be anything serious.”
That’s the moment when the couple decided to visit a private clinic where doctors spotted the cancer after conducting an MRI scan. By this point, however, the cancer had advanced to stage 4, having spread to different parts of Sharma’s body.
Once the cancer was discovered, the man underwent chemo and his condition initially improved. He was nothing but excited to witness the birth of his first daughter. But something suddenly changed and his condition started worsening, the cancer progressed and became untreatable during an 11-week wait for an operation to remove the tumor. The man died just two days after Christmas.
“I can’t help but wonder whether our situation would have changed if he had been diagnosed earlier,” Nimisha said. “The delays were there and ultimately that cost him his life. Had they monitored him earlier there could have been a different outlook.”
Nimisha decided to speak out in an effort to raise awareness and encourage people in similar situation to get checked on time hopefully preventing similar situations.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.