Page 392 - She's One Crazy Lady!

Because Marilyn had been diagnosed as having lymphoedema long before this rash problem began, her GP suggested she should be seen by the Lymphoedema Team who were based at the Cynthia Spencer Hospice in Northampton, who we knew well, through my personal involvement of having lymphoedema and through Crazy Hats, having funded projects for their department many times. Like her GP and like the doctors at KGH, the Lymphoedema Nurses didn’t know what the rash could be – they were even looking up her symptoms in a book, in front of us, which wasn’t very reassuring. You will appreciate that there were time lapses in between each of these appointments so consequently Marilyn’s breast was getting worse. Naturally she was becoming very worried, anxious and scared. We were all worried. The Lymphoedema Team felt she should now be seen by a Dermatologist as, to them, Marilyn’s symptoms looked more like a skin condition.
A referral was made.
We inwardly knew and had a feeling that whatever these spots were (now a spreading angry-looking rash), it was not good – we somehow knew this was more than just a skin condition. Between us the word ‘cancer’ cropped up many times. We were having to buy dressings to clean and cover her breast and in
time District Nurses were brought on board to help her on a daily basis as the breast had started to weep. Her family, and I felt so much for Marilyn, but struggled to get her the help and support – and treatment – she so obviously and desperately needed.
We were so frustrated that she hadn’t been referred back to the Breast Clinic.
For Marilyn, the enforced Covid state of affairs made life so incredibly hard and decidedly worrying for, despite her being referred to a Dermatologist, her appointment was cancelled. She could not be ‘seen’ by a Dermatologist for several weeks so was asked to send in photographs of her breast with the ‘rash’ moving across to the other breast. How inhumane this was! We were now into August 2020 – almost 10 months since she first presented herself to the Breast Clinic.
At last a face-to-face appointment came through.
I was not allowed to go in with Marilyn so waited in the car. It was an agonising hour. Seeing her leave the building I could tell by her face it was not going to be good news.
Marilyn told me as soon as the Consultant looked at her breasts, she (Marilyn) was told, quite bluntly, “That’s cancer.” She even told Marilyn the photos she’d previously been sent were nothing like her breast that day. Of course they weren’t! Marilyn took those photos weeks before
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