I’m very sorry for your loss.

My 31 year old son came home from work a couple of months ago, not feeling well. He said he had “flu like symptoms.” He wasn’t running a fever, but he wasn’t up to par. He had recently moved back home, as he and his roommates had a falling out. He was going to stay with us for a few months until he could find another place he could afford. Since he was 31, we kind of let him do his thing. He was just lethargic, and a bit achy. This was on a Monday.

He stayed out of work on Tuesday and Wednesday. When Thursday came and he still didn’t feel better, he went to Urgent Care. They ran all the tests – COVID, flu, strep, etc. All were negative, so they gave him a steroid shot and prescribed some cough medicine. They couldn’t find anything else wrong. He was feeling much better after the steroids.

Friday morning, he came out to the kitchen and collapsed. My husband was working from home (I was at work) and came into the kitchen to check on our son. He was sitting on the floor, but couldn’t really remember what happened. My husband called 911 to come and check him out, then called me to let me know they were heading to the hospital. The EMTs didn’t think it was anything really serious, either.

When he got to the hospital, they ran blood tests and found his white blood cell count, which should have been around 5,000 – 10,000, was well over 100,000. They did scans and other tests. At some point, they determined that his spleen had ruptured, but resealed. They also decided he probably had a blood cancer. Less than 36 hours later, he was gone.

His cause of death was septic shock, brought on by acute leukemia. The doctors were surprised that he was not in pain from the spleen, but he basically had no symptoms until he was too sick to recover.

I’m a cancer nurse and in my experience, colon and pancreatic cancer seem to be detected pretty late stage. They don’t always move quickly – but the symptoms are typically mild at first, then the individual gets used to it and just deals with it. There are other things that need to be focused on and dealt with. Family. Work. Financial obligations. Preventive care is huge but doesn’t cover everything. They don’t say much to others and don’t feel the need to get it checked out and always tell themselves “im fine.” I myself am guilty. I hardly ever seek help for myself until its bad. Like, really bad.

At least in the US, it would certainly help if citizens were not paying 5k for a CT scan since blood work is not always often used for diagnosis of these cancers. It requires extra tests that many cannot afford and would rather put toward their families and not themselves. It sucks. After these tests, cost of treatment is also pretty terrible for many. If getting treatment was not such a financial burden to so many, more people would be willing to get help. People who are in emergencies refuse ambulances because they know what that bill will look like. It’s heartbreaking.

I apologize for ranting..

This happened to my mum, 9 years ago this October. She had some aches and pains and thought it was just getting older (she was only 58) but it got worse so went to the Dr and they ran a few tests nothing come back and then it would move somewhere else, she had a liver scan and less then 4 weeks she died. Apparently it was secondary cancer of the liver and then spread to her bones, they never did find out the original source of it. The last week we were told on the Monday she had a few months, the Tuesday it went to a few weeks we asked if she could go home and they arranged it for the Friday to be released and everything was put in place and Wednesday morning we were told the latest results show it could only be a few days, Wednesday afternoon they told us she might not make it through the night…. We said she needed to come home tomorrow and they all pulled it together and we managed it, Thursday morning they said she could die in the way home. She past away on Saturday Evening.

When we got the news we thought treatment and we can get through it it’s changed alot and the success rate is much better now, I have known people in remission and people battling it for years, but never known it to be so quick. A year later my sister’s manager had the same 6weeks after diagnosis. My best friend’s dad fought for 4yeara with lung cancer and passed away last year.

Cancer can be slow or aggressive, treatable or incurable like us it’s individual to everyone.