I’m so scared I have cancer.

[Letsmoveondude]

I have had a chest issue for four months. It all started with DD having a viral infection, and we were on holiday, I became unwell and when we returned I couldn’t stay awake, by a few days later it became apparent I needed to go to the drs as I was coughing up blood.

I was given antibiotics and it wouldn’t shift, I felt like I couldn’t breathe and I ended up going in to see our practice nurse, she said it was my asthma, so I wasn’t worried and started taking some asthma pumps. The next week I ended up in out of hours because I thought I’d had an asthma attack. I couldn’t catch my breath and I couldn’t stop coughing, infact I’d even coughed so much I made myself sick. It was really bad, I was given some steroids to help me. The chest pain eased but didn’t stop me coughing.

I had my pumps changed. This happened two more times, but in the meantime I’d not been able to stop coughing up bloody sputum.

Come Christmas Eve my husband says, let’s get you to the dr because this has gone on too long. Went to the dr who said one more set of antibiotics and one last asthma pump change but in the new year if you’re not better we need to start with investigative tests- COPD was mentioned- shocked me a bit because I am only 28 and I don’t smoke, but I was born prematurely and I did grown up in a house with smokers who always smoked around me.

I’ve not been able to get an appointment since, but spoke with a Dr earlier who tells me that i have to go back in and then he will refer me for a broncoscopy because im still bringing up blood stained phlegm every few days.
I’m no longer coughing. But the phlegm is still coming up, and I am feeling so, so run down, and weak. I still can’t be around cleaning products or anything. Really starting to feel I won’t get better. I’m really scared. I don’t even have anyone to turn to for support at the moment, I don’t really have family, I don’t really have any friends I can rely on, both of the close friends I have, have both had recent close deaths so I can’t just pile on them, my husbands in Scotland for work.

Did they do a chest x-ray at any point in the process?

Lungs can be awful things, there are SO many things this can be and at your age AND given the fact that you yourself don’t smoke (even if you did it’s still very young) the chances of it being lung cancer are minuscule.

When I was 15 I developed a severe cough, I coughed so much I would regularly vomit after and it was often with blood, it took almost 6 months before I diagnosed with whooping cough and given the right treatment, you say your daughter was ill before you... had anyone considered wc as a possibility? Have you been vaccinated for it?

My chest was week as a youngster and after my bout of whooping cough my lungs are not pretty useless, I’m on antiobiotics right now for a chest infection and with this I’ve brought up bloody sputum.

What you have sounds more like an ongoing infection of some kind, of your lungs are week from being brought up in a smokers house they may be struggling to shift a slightly more aggressive infection. What you have doesn’t sound anything like asthma, has anyone suggested a chest X-ray? I’d go back to your go and put your foot down, call them tomorrow and say you’ve been and overnight and need to be seen, say you want a chest X-ray, this has been going on long enough.

You’ll be okay you just need the right treatment, go in guns blazing xxx

There's an absolutely rotten viral chest infection going round tooke 10+ weeks to shift it.

Mossconduct- they did in early November and I never heard anything, but the Dr I spoke with earlier told me that cancer wouldn’t always show up on an X Ray which wasn’t what I was expecting to hear.

Thank you Widget, I think I just needed to read your post, it has really been going on for so long, and it’s really getting me down because I thought it was just a chest infection and I’d be feeling better really quickly, but 4 months on and I still feel like death warmed up, going out in the cold to walk the dog hurts my chest, walking from the living room to the next room makes me out of breath, that’s aside from the obvious worry that it causes, I’ve provressively had to get tougher, and felt completely deflated that the dr on the phone earlier wasn’t much help, so going to try and get an appointment tomorrow and really push for answers and some help to get better. It doesn’t sound like it’s asthma though, and I’m glad to have read that you don’t think it sounds like asthma either.

No one assumed whooping cough, I think we’ve been immunised against it, we e had all the normal injections, but my DD got better quite quickly- a day or two before we came home off holiday but i always struggle to fight things off more than most people. I hope your chest infection goes soon too! Xx

Have you had a test for TB? I know someone who got it recently (not in at risk group at all - affluent married professional with kids etc)

She had blood stained phlegm and breathing difficulties.

Diagnosed by x-ray. Treated with antibiotics (6 months - year I think)

I thought TB too as a friend of mine contracted it after coming back from Nigeria and he had very similar symptoms and they didn't think TB for ages as it's so uncommon now. Was treated 100% successfully with antibiotics.
You poor thing though, that sounds horrible even if almost certainly not anything sinister. Really hope you're on the mend soon.

Has anyone said pneumonia to you?

In all honesty I started out thinking I had pneumonia, then started to worry about TB given that the symptoms aren’t that dissimilar, and I’d thought that the X Ray would have ruled that out, but this morning I managed to get a drs appointment, I’ve found out that the x Ray I had in November was never even added to my file, so they are going to try and chase that up because they would have been the first things I thought,
It’s just that I’m not getting better and there’s no clear reason why I’m unwell.

I’ve also got a form for a sputum sample, and some blood tests and I’m being referred to the chest clinic which I hear will take a few weeks. So no real answers and very different To what the other Dr said yesterday, but I guess that the joy of not being able to see the same person more than once.

Thanks all.

yes it sounds like there is a infection that is not shifting on your lungs - I would demand another x ray or that one checked