Life expectancy sent by email - relative

[BillStickersIsInnocent]

Hi, I hope someone can help.

I’m really shocked by this communication but I could well be missing something. A relative received an email after a CT scan saying he had inoperable lung cancer and giving him 2 years to live. 2 weeks later another email saying his scan had been sent to another clinician who has concluded he has 8 months to live.
This feels so cruel, I would have thought these conversations happen face to face or at least over the phone where you can ask questions.
Does anyone else have any experience of this type of communication?

He's lying.

My mum had chest xrays and CT scans prior to her lung cancer diagnosis. Even during covid she received telephone calls before confirmatory letters. After covid it was 100% face to face.

Can they contact his GP and ask how they can access care? The GP can't give them his confidential information, but if this is a load of lies that may well flush it out.

I would guess this too.

I am undergoing investigations and I've received letters confirming what was discussed at appointments but not news that I received for the first time.

I have a friend who has recently received quite a serious diagnosis, and they wouldn't give her anything at all via email or even over the phone - all big news needed a face to face appointment. She called to ask about some test results, they confirmed they had them, but still wouldn't tell her, it had to be at the face to face appointment with the consultant.

So yeah....I'd say not telling the truth!

Do you know if this person and their parents are registered at the same gp surgery? Clearly the surgery can’t give you any information at all, but could you write to them explaining this situation and your concerns that the elderly parents might be vulnerable and at risk of financial abuse perhaps. They would know his medical condition and if he’s telling a giant porkie (he absolutely is, there is no way any of what he has said is right. Even if he were terminal there are still treatments to improve quality of life etc. No way would any consultant I know let a patient find out bad news this way, or be so sure about a timeline).

Or as others have said either the police or adult social services in their area. His criminal history is hopefully likely to increase the chance someone might intervene I would hope.

I'm pretty sure they would normally use the other doctor's name.

I don't know about cancer diagnosis but my family carries the BRCA1 gene. I had the genetic test and had to go back to see the Consultant to get my result, which thankfully was negative. Another member of the family had the test done at a different hospital, they were told if it was negative they would be discharged by email but if it was positive they would have an appointment to see the Consultant. So in fact if the email was an appointment they knew it was a positive. Not quite the same as being positive doesn't mean you will definitely get breast cancer but for someone with daughters and granddaughters it was still a shocking way to find out.

MacMillan Cancer Care does far more than that; and we found their support absolutely invaluable.

https://www.macmillan.org.uk/cancer-information-and-support/get-help

What a difficult situation you're in OP. Sounds as if his parents are in denial about the kind of person he is, and not wanting to risk their wrath while still protecting them is a tricky one.

I think I would start by contacting PALS and getting confirmation that the hospital would never notify patients of this kind of diagnosis by email (I mean, we all know this story is a load of rubbish but get it from an official source).

You can then go to the parents and say that you're worried the supposedly-ill person has been scammed. That will be easier for them to hear than the fact that their son is deliberately scamming them but it could open a can of worms without jeopardising your relationship with them. They might be willing to consider him being scammed, especially if you can show them correspondence from PALS confirming terminal diagnosis are not sent out by email. Hopefully his story will then start to unravel. You might never prove that he was deliberately lying but if the parents find out this isn't true because their darling boy has been scammed by a fake medical email, at least they're protected from whatever he has in mind and that's your main objective I guess?

But someone would have talked him through what the chest X ray showed and why they were recommending a CT scan. It really couldn't come out of the blue.

@AnnaMagnani being pedantic doesn't change the fact

Not cancer but I am unwell with a life limiting illness and am at the hospital and having tests regularly. I've never once in the entire period of various diagnoses had an email - the only exception being from the consultants secretary with non medical and non confidential information only. I recently had an email from a department about an appointment and even then they apologised for putting the details of the appointment in the body of the email, saying sorry to do so but they did not have my correct number to call me on, and it was a short notice urgent appointment. The terminology "top oncologist" sounds equally untrue and not akin to anything else I have ever seen (and I have drawers full of medical letters at home). They would refer to colleagues as Dr or Mr etc, if they did at all and this concept of a second opinion popping over by email would be almost laughable, if it weren't such an upsetting context.

Given the persons backstory OP I would be very concerned, and would move quickly to understand if they are using this as leverage to make financial gain from their parents. I would contact the police if I suspected this was the case as this would without doubt, be fraud and they would be happy to take a call to report this concern.

If you are worried about them in general you can contact Age UK for advice or adult social care at your local council and make them aware you believe they are vulnerable, isolated and potentially victims of fraud.

For what it's worth, our local hospital has a scheme whereby you can sign up to receive copies of letters online. But it's not an email system.

I'd think they are lying or it's a scam
Oncologists are very reticent to give a life expectancy usually and they certainly not give it in an email
Could the patient be trying to extort money?( horrible thought I realise)

I agree that you need to contact social services. The parents are vulnerable elderly people who are almost certainly being scammed by a known criminal. Even on the minute chance this is genuine, they would need help with support for their son.

My DH was given a cancer diagnosis 18 months ago and everything was communicated face to face.We had phone calls and follow up letters at every stage. Not a single email regarding his treatment or diagnosis.

That's because it's not true .

Hi OP, what an awful situation. Sorry don't have time to read the whole thread, but if I get it right from what you've written, you're worried that your relative with a history of manipulation and exploitation will suck his parents dry, possibly exaggerating his diagnosis. I have two pieces of anecdotal evidence that may be relevant.

Firstly, my father died of lung cancer about a year after diagnosis. What I heard from different doctors at the time is that lung cancer does tend to kill quickly if discovered late, and it's nasty. All blood in the body has to pass through the lung and that means that cancer cells can hitch a ride to anywhere in the body. My father made the mistake of trying to 'fight the disease' and bled to death from tumours in his gut and liver that had become raw due to aggressive chemotherapy (which his GP had advised against but he was hellbent on trying). If it is lung cancer, your relative faces one hell of a journey.

Secondly, I was given a diagnosis of suspected MS by a doctor considered quite a luminary in the field (at the nat. hospital for neurology and neurosurgery in London). The first time he saw me, he said I had a 50/50 chance of having MS. When I quoted this back to him a mere three weeks later, he went 'oh did I say that? Well I'd say it's more like 80/20'. It did not seem to occur to him that I was clinging to these numbers like a drowning person; he was grotesquely blase about them. Given how much worse things are in the NHS now, I wouldn't be surprised if someone had conflicting prognoses thrown at them willy-nilly.
Fwiw. All the best.

I would ring Age Concern for some advice, as I think it could be a safeguarding issue, just explain that you’re worried about the elderly parents in this situation.

Eight months takes him to Christmas time. Maybe his miraculous cure will be his parents present…?

Sounds dodgy AF

Does he have a probation officer, OP? If so, would you consider notifying them of his "diagnosis"? If it were true, they'd need to know because of the impact it would have on his availability for employment. Given it isn't, and the potential for him to scam his parents, they may end up taking a different sort of interest. It could be something to keep up your sleeve for when this escalates to demands for money.

This is a very good idea. Sadly they sound like ideal targets for financial abuse.

Nope.

When my sister moved to end of life care, we did get an email confirming it and that she was out of treatment options. But it was requested, so we could sort out an expedited wedding license and death in service payment etc.
All the shitty news was given in appointments,, some in person, some online due to covid.