A moving letter from 18-year-old Weronika was published on the gazetakrakowska.pl portal. In it, he describes his mother’s fight with breast cancer and her death due to the negligence of doctors. “Now, when I hear that our government is donating 2 billion zlotys to its own television, instead of oncology hospitals or other medical centers, which for years of neglect on the part of the state look like deaths, something inside me breaks and breaks” – we read in a letter.
- 18-year-old Weronika accompanied her mother during the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. She describes in bitter words what happened to her mother
- The woman died after eight months of treatment. She spent the last weeks in the intensive care unit. Weronika resents the doctors and the entire health care system that they did not do everything to save her mother
- If you want to share your history of disease and treatment with us, please write to [email protected]
A diagnosis that changes your life
18-year-old Weronika wrote a shocking letter, which was published on the gazetakrakowska.pl portal. It describes her mother’s struggle with breast cancer and an ineffective health care system. Weronika’s mother died in June 2019, after eight months of treatment.
– I want to give people food for thought and share the history of my mother’s cancer, who died in June 2019, through metastases, breast cancer and an infiltrative tumor on her left breast with metastasis to the left lymph node – sub-sacral, spinal cord and meninges – we read at the beginning of the letter.
In August 2018, Weronika’s mother noticed that one of her breasts was swollen. Despite the mammography performed a month earlier, the woman became concerned about the swelling and decided to consult a doctor. This one saw nothing suspicious. The swelling continued and eventually Weronika’s mother went for a private visit to the gynecologist. After the ultrasound was done, the doctor immediately referred him to the oncology clinic.
Fragment of a letter
My father listened with sadness to my mother’s screams of pain when she was on another, within three months, a mammogram, and then, after a breast ultrasound, he reassured her after the doctor yelled […] at my mother that she came so late. Outrageous and exceeding all standards, starting with basic manners
On November 29, 2018, after a series of tests, my mother started chemotherapy – first four doses of white chemistry, then four doses of red chemotherapy. After chemotherapy was completed, she was to have the tumor removed.
«My mother had to quit her job as a teacher and stay at home on a relatively low pension. My father and I supported her as best we could. We accompanied her during checkups and chemotherapy, as well as in the period after chemotherapy, when my mother resembled a tired shadow of herself. The red flag should be that after the end of the white chemistry, the hair did not grow back, but after consulting the doctor we found out that it was normal ».
At the end of April, Weronika’s mother received the last, highest dose of chemotherapy. She was not feeling very well, she was very weak and complained of neck pain. Weronika recalls that my mother mostly slept during this period. At the beginning of May, on the day when my mother was due for checkups, she felt very bad. The frightened family called an ambulance that took the woman to the hospital. Weronika describes the appearance of the room where my mother was lying (“I think she remembers the times when this hospital was built”) and the behavior of the doctors who looked after her mother.
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Fighting the disease and the sick system
«My mother did not recognize me or her husband. She kicked her legs against the barely held bed. My and my father’s requests for any information or tests were passed over to the attending physician, and the nurses came to help me calm down my mother only after a personal request ”. The next day my mother felt better, there was contact with her and she looked “as if nothing had happened”.
Doctors diagnosed epilepsy, prescribed medications, and discharged the woman from the hospital. Unfortunately, attacks kept coming, and one was worse than the other. The exhausted female body could barely cope with them. She usually fell asleep after the attacks. She was also taking antiepileptic and painkillers all the time. On the night of May 24-25, the attack was so severe that the family called an ambulance again.
Fragment of a letter
The condition of the hospital rooms where patients were admitted was deplorable. The place where patients with various ailments used to come was simply dirty, not to mention the toilet situation. After 11 hours in the emergency room, my mother was sent home.
On May 28, Weronika’s mother was taken to the hospital again and has never left it. One of the attacks resulted in cardiac arrest and the woman was resuscitated for an hour. From the neurological ward, she went to the intensive care ward.
«It was only there that the head of the ward told us that my mother had metastases. It was only there that someone took proper care of her condition, because only there she had real, high-quality XNUMX-hour care and a comfortable mattress against bedsores ».
On June 3, the woman regained consciousness for the last time. «Then, hooked up to the apparatus, she had the opportunity to see her loved ones for the last time. Say goodbye. I was there then, me and my father, her parents, my father’s parents, her siblings and closest friends. » On the night of June 6-7, Weronika’s mother died.
Weronika’s entire letter, together with her appeal to the rulers, can be read on the Gazeta Krakowska website.
We remind you of the letters we received from our readers as part of the #NiewidzialnyPacjent campaign:
- I feel like a pawn. All the doctors I meet are insensitive
- There are many stories like mine – slow euthanasia, with no dignity left
- Doctors for 20 years did not know what was wrong with her. The bacteria spread throughout the body
If you want to share your history of disease and treatment with us, please write to [email protected]