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A woman has was left unable to walk after his spine cancer symptoms were confused with signs of menopause and a gardening injury.
Karen Davey, 54, from Cornwall, began to feel puffs of heat, fatigue and a loss of appetite in early 2024, But she assumed that it was symptoms of menopause.
But in March 2024, she developed pain in her The kidneys and went to visit his general practitioner. However, he was told that back pain was due to gardening, Despite only 20 minutes.
During the next two months, her symptoms worsened and she stopped eating properly, lost weight and developed a temperature, losing any sensation in her legs later and as well as the function of the bladder and the intestine. After being taken to the hospital and admitted for two weeks, she was devastating A news that she had a non -Hodgkin’s lymphoma from Stadium four in her kidneys and a tumor wrapped around her spinal cord.
After a radiotherapy cycle and new chemotherapy, she is now in remission. However, she has not been able to walk and is now a full -time wheelchair user.
The effects “that change the life” of cancer have meant that she must reduce her hours of work to four a week, while her husband abandoned the work to be a full -time caregiver.
Davey told the association of vertebral injuries that she thought that her symptoms had been “rejected” by her general practitioner and continued to be rejected until she was admitted to the hospital.
She said, “I started from someone who was quite active before. I would do a lot of hikes through the moors, I used to swim in cold water all year round. One of the last things I did before getting sick was an anceil next to a 120 -foot viaduct.
“This is not what I am supposed to do at this time of life. I have not yet been able to return to driving or something like that. I depend completely on my husband; it spoiled my social life, I have just met friends or to go swimming or jumping in town to look around stores. Emotionally, it’s just completely spoiled.”
Davey said she wanted to make her situation known and help other people who could feel similar symptoms.
She said, “I did not know that heat puffs would lead to all this. The symptoms you have are not always symptoms of menopause, and we must be more attentive to this.
“I’m just annoyed that it was attributed to menopause and making gardening when it was necessary to look a little more. I didn’t know anything Lesion of the spinal cord And when my toes started to tickle, I didn’t come to mind that it was what it was. There is not enough information.
The association of vertebral injuries supports people living with spinal cord injuries. Dharshana Sridhar, head of the Spinal Buthys Association campaigns, said: “Karen’s story is a powerful reminder that women’s health symptoms should never be rejected or explained without appropriate investigation.
“Too often, women suffering from spinal cord lesions are faced with delays in diagnosis and unnecessary obstacles to fair care, which leaves them to face consequences that have changed the life that could have been prevented. Every woman, regardless of her handicap. “”
