27 Year-old woman died one day after cancer diagnosis, symptoms dismissed as 'hormonal'

[Celerity]

Aspiring model, 27, dies from 'aggressive' cervical cancer one day after being diagnosed

Porsche 'Pops' McGregor-Sims, 27, from Petersfield, Hampshire, was told by a doctor her hormones were to blame and her aggressive cancer went undiagnosed for months


https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/aspiring-model-27-dies-aggressive-25871758



An aspiring young model died of cervical cancer at the age of 27 just months after being told by a doctor that her hormones were simply to blame for her "myriad" of symptoms, an inquest heard. Porsche 'Pops' McGregor-Sims had an "aggressive" form of the disease which had gone undiagnosed for months despite continual complaints of abdominal pain and bleeding.

The graduate passed away in hospital just a day after the cancer was discovered, having previously been told by the consultant that she didn't need to be physically examined and her problems could be linked to ceasing birth control.

Only weeks before her death - as Britain entered the first coronavirus lockdown - she was prescribed antibiotics over the phone for her condition, the hearing was told.

She was seen by a doctor face by face only after the GP thought her shortness of breath meant she had Covid. Her case has led a coroner to suggest national guidelines, which say women suspected of having the disease need to wait two weeks before being seen by a specialist, may have contributed to her death.

snip

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Another young woman, dead because nobody believed anything was wrong with her.

We are discounted because of our sex. We are looked down upon by too many who could be helping us survive the diseases that we get.

Instead, we die because we've been neglected by those who are supposed to pay attention.

[Celerity]

2. I know, my dear Peggy! That 'Oh, it's just hormones' shite sounds like something from the 1940's ffs

[LiberatedUSA]

3. My wife had endometriosis.

I now fully understand the hell women have to go through before they finally get diagnosed with it. Years of this or that or “just unexplained pain” and ERs thinking we wanted to score pain meds.

[CountAllVotes]

6. After I went through a hellish hysterectomy

I found out not only did I have a tumor the size of a 6 month old fetus in me, I also have endometriosis. It never goes away.

It wrecked me good and damn near killed me a few years later.

The doctors I saw did not believe me either. Many still don't!

So freakin' disgusting!!!!!

& recommend !!!!!!!!!

[Demovictory9]

9. I was told I had IBS.. when lump was so big it could been seen from just looking at my tummy

I pointed to lump, doc touched it and STILL DID NOTHING. next doctor, I pointed it out and he basically reacted.. "OMG,, SURGERY TOMORROW!".

This was about 30 years ago.

yes, I had to be my own advocate by going through 3 doctors.

[RandPaulsNeighbor]

27. I Think We Are Missing A Key Point

I think most points I have read here are valid. But, and I hate to go political here, a big point of focus in the article is a 2 week waiting period for a specialist in England's public care system. They are saying that was too long.

I have 4 different specialist appointments in the next 6 months. I have been waiting at least 6 months for all them. One will be an 8 month wait.

A large part of the article is about the inquest of the doctor. They do not leave out much. They give very personal details about the women's life. It is kind of shocking and unnecessary for the reader.

[Disaffected]

5. Demonstrates the importance of being your own advocate.

Physicians are not infallible and some are incompetent or quacks.

Google and second opinions are your friend.

[FakeNoose]

4. Isn't cervical cancer notoriously hard to diagnose?

If someone doesn't get regular pap smear tests, they'd probably never know they had cervical cancer. Especially a young and otherwise healthy woman. What a tragic loss!

[niyad]

20. She was NOT "otherwise healthy". She had multiple symptoms, pain, etc. She was ill

for months.

[Demovictory9]

7. "He apologised to her family for failing to pick up her cancer."

[BeckyDem]

8. This is horrifying and should never ever have happened.

omg poor woman. ugh

[iemanja]

10. This is how women are treated in the medical system

far too often. Something similar happened to my mother, though she is still alive. Her cancer grew greatly because her primary care physician didn't do any of the necessary tests. It turned out she had a form of blood cancer called Multiple Myeloma.

[Celerity]

11. so glad she is still alive!!

[iemanja]

16. Thanks

It was bad for a while, but she's doing a lot better now.

[Bev54]

14. My Mom had a hernia removed, in 1998 through her belly button. Went to my sister's

to recover, was not getting better so my sister took her to a different hospital emergency (she did billings for the hospital's emergency doctors so she knew them) They immediately did surgery because she had a 9 lb tumour. It was benign but how the other hospital did the first surgery and not even notice?? It was beyond crazy.

[malaise]

12. This is horrific

That doctor should lose his license

[liberalmuse]

13. It can be difficult for a woman to get decent healthcare

Doctors dismiss our complaints as imaginary and we're not taken seriously. Not much has changed since we used to get diagnosed with having "hysterics".

[Bev54]

15. It is why I now insist on having a woman doctor.

[MuseRider]

26. Me too

and so far the difference has made me not ever want a male....except I love the guy who did my ventricular ablation. I guess if they do save your life......

[RobinA]

38. The Most Thoughtless

dismissive doctor I ever had was a female. I think it's more an individual thing.

[liberalmuse]

40. I finally found a good one.

And she's great, but I've had bad experiences with some male doctors, including one who gave me the creeps and I found out why when he ogled my breasts. The other hurdle is getting my insurance company to not nix the tests my doctor wants to run. Insurance companies have no business being involved in healthcare.

[Bev54]

41. I agree, I am Canadian so don't worry about insurance companies so much.

[Ms. Toad]

17. I was diagnosed a little over a year ago with a very aggressive cancer.

Last edited Fri Jan 7, 2022, 09:12 PM - Edit history (1)

It was diagnosed at kidney-bean size. 90% of this type of cancer is diagnosed at golf-ball sized or larger -because that is the criteria for screening for it. Most are removed at anywhere from tennis ball to volleyball size - at which time they have nearly all metastasized, which accounts for a mortality in the range of 50% at 5 years.

Even after diagnosis and surgery to remove it, when I had to make an appointment because of an apparent regrowth (of this cancer which regrows more often than not), they did not want to make an appointment because the potential regrowth was not yet bigger than a golf ball.

That's on the tail end of the crappy, "let's not listen to the patient" end of my tale.

Back at the beginning

I've been watching this thing since 2014.

The first doctor told me I was being ridiculous, and rather than doing a biopsy he require me to make a second appointment for a punch biopsy (a trivial procedure that most dermatologists do immediately with suspicious skin lesions).

When the pathology report came back, I researched the skimpy report and found some troubling characteristics.

That same doctor refused to get answers to my questions from the pathologist, forcing me to make an appointment with the pathologist to get the answers I needed.

The pathologist confirmed the troubling characteristics - and added two to the list (4 out of the 5 bad signs, IIRC, which suggest that the tumor I have should be treated as pre-cancerous.)

Back to my regular dermatologist (I only saw the insta-doc because the lesion was growing too rapidly to wait for my regular dermatologist). She excised regrowths in the same area 3 more times between 2014 and 2020.

In November 2020 - she excised another regrowth (humoring me, but certain it was nothing). On December 4, 2020 (to her surprise, but not mine) I was diagnosed with myxofibrosarcoma.

It is ONLY because I demanded an excision, and ONLY because I repeatedly demanded excisions of any regrowth, that I was diagnosed at a stage where my prognosis is probably closer to 90% at 5 years than 50%.


The icing on the cake - my BIL was just diagnosed with a related, very aggressive cancer, after his doctor twice refused to excise the spot he was concerned about. She finally agreed because he kept picking at it. His prognosis is far worse than mine because his doctor didn't pay attention to his concerns, and he didn't demand it. While I was typing this out, I got the call that his has metastasized. Damn. The location plus metastasis dramatically decreases his chances of survival. He will now be seen by my current doctors, rather than the incompetent boobs who refused to take him seriously..

Doctors who do not take patients seriously can dramatically shorten the lives of their patients. The problem is dramatically worse with "female problems" . . . I have a story about that too. But dismissing concerns runs across the board. It also killed my FIL (bladder cancer which was ignored by his doctors for more than a year).

Don't EVER let a doctor tell you there is nothing wrong with you, when you know there is. Find another doctor, and another, and another until someone listens.

And on that note, I'm heading home to see how my spouse is doing - and to wait for a call from her sister (who will have more medical specific advice about my BIL). 2022 is off to a rip-roaring start.

[Celerity]

19. thank you so much for sharing thus vital story, I hope all read it!

[LoisB]

18. That is so sad.

[GB_RN]

21. Such A Goddamned Waste...

People should lose medical licenses and go to jail over shit like this. I don’t know how they do it in Britain, but if I were family, I’d be pushing for that. It’s the incompetence and arrogance of her physicians that killed her.

[Solly Mack]

22. K&R

Makes me angry. Women go through this more often than a lot of people realize. Doctors who ignore our concerns. Who dismiss us as "hormonal".

[colorado_ufo]

23. Several decades ago I saw my doctor because of extreme fatigue and other issues.

I asked if it could be my thyroid, having recently read an article that described the symptoms. He said, "Looking at your skin and hair, I don't think that is likely, but if you want we will run the tests and have the results next week." The next morning, at 11:30 AM, the doctor himself called and said, "The lab called"; (I didn't like to hear that); "There was no detectable thyroid hormone in your body. They could not even run the tests. This is a medical emergency. We need to start you back on thyroid hormone gradually so as not to send you into cardiac arrest."

And so it goes.

[ProfessorGAC]

30. Somewhat Similar Story

My wife, not me.
For a week or so, she's feeling rotten. Weak, constant fatigue, upset stomach, and so on.
Finally gets so bad we go to the hospital.
Blood test shows ​105ppm sodium. 130-140 is normal. 90 is dead.
She's admitted and they start pumping IV saline.
Next morning, urine sodium is sky high. Blood sodium is 100.
GP & pysch both there trying to figure out what to do.
I run home & get on my laptop and start going through my wife's psych med list.
A new one she's on is LISTED ON THE FREAKING INTERNET of having the potential to trigger hyponatremia!
I run back to hospital and tell both doctors to take her off that med NOW! If she needs to go back on the prior med, ok but this med needs to go.
By 10pm that night (one dose missed) sodium is up to 108 and urine sodium is down.
By the next morning she was at 120 & feeling better.
By the next morning she was at 135 and was discharged.
I had to be the one to figure it out.
The kicker: the psych says to me "Gee, it's a good thing she married a scientist.". WTF!
Obviously, we found a new psych doctor.

[colorado_ufo]

32. So glad you saved her!

Thank you so much for sharing this.

[3catwoman3]

24. This sad case also points out the inherent weakness in telemedicine.

I retired from 45 years as a peds nurse practitioner not quite a year ago. Telemedicine was a big reason. You CANNOT accurately diagnose something by phone or computer screen. My outlook was, If I can't see it, auscultate it (listen to it), or palpate it (touch it or feel it), I don't want to diagnose it."

Before telemedicine became so popular, people still wanted treatment without being examined. Not unusual on call for a parent to want an antibiotic called in for assorted reasons. My usual reply to such requests was, "I could do that, but I need you to understand that the very best I can do over the phone is to guess what might be going on with your child, and I would hate to guess wrong."

That usually put an end to the request.

[demigoddess]

25. shortness of breathe is the number one sign of cancer in women. I found this out

after seeing 3 women doctors about my shortness of breath. The first one said I just needed a cholesterol pill, the second one said I had bronchitis, the third one said I was so anemic, I could have fallen over dead. It was colon cancer.

[Cozmo]

28. This is unacceptable! Be your own advocate.

You know when someone isn't listening to you. Break the cycle and go to another doctor, your life may depend upon it.

[niyad]

29. and the WAR ON WOMEN continues apace. Would you consider cross-posting this in

Women's Rights And Issues? Thanks in advance.

This story is horrifying and obscene. That woman-hating quack needs to have his license revoked. But, alas, his dismissal of women is far too common.

[Celerity]

31. done

https://www.democraticunderground.com/113812960

Would you consider cross-posting this in Women's Rights And Issues? Thanks in advance.

[niyad]

33. I would, with great pleasure, but my pos computer has a weird glitch. I cannot

link, or copy and paste. Would love iif you would post it.

[Celerity]

34. I just did, that is what I was telling you, the link to it was in my reply

[niyad]

36. Sorry, brain dead here. Thank you for posting the article, I saw that. I meant would

oou also post that wonderful graphic.

[Celerity]

37. done as well

[niyad]

39. Thank you.

[Just_Vote_Dem]

35. Simply horrible