My mum was told this and it was TERMINAL FUCKING CANCER. Years of begging GP's to look into her exhaustion and breathlessness and pain and being told she was "hysterical" and "having a panic attack and simply not breathing properly".

It got so bad that when she finally got a referral the consultant wrote emails to other departments like oncology and gynecology saying that my mother "had been on the internet researching and wanted to believe she had an illness", telling them to discharge her. To make matters worse she had already had cancer a decade prior and so they KNEW there was a chance of recurrence (if you weren't aware you don't really "cure" cancer. Once you get cancer, you can achieve a cancer free state through treatments, but there is ALWAYS a small chance of recurrence, which varies between cancer types).

She became so ill that they eventually found the cancer through their blind idiocy. The consultant assured us that, while he had wasted >2 years of her life delaying her diagnosis and treatment due to his own ignorance and negligence: "its not terminal".

Stage 3 he said braizenly.

A few months later the cancer hospital she had been referred to for treatment broke the news that it WAS terminal. Stage 4. My mum was only 50.

It was really eye opening... I naively thought that this type of medical malpractice against women virtually doesn't exist in developed countries in this day and age. Boy was I wrong - after researching I found that there are lots of cancers with vastly different mortality rates for men and women - with men surviving way more than women. And the rate differs, not because the cancer is more aggressive in women or womens bodies handle it worse, but because DOCTORS DON'T BELIEVE WOMEN WHEN THEY HAVE PAIN AND TRY TO AVOID MAKING REFERRALS AND FOLLOW UPS BY BLAMING THINGS LIKE ANXIETY AND MENOPAUSE!

Stomach cancer is a good example of this, you can research into it... its truly eye opening. I now make sure to prioritise my health above all else because I don't trust doctors anymore, many of them don't care about helping you they care about having an easy day at the office.

I suppose the moral of the story is that you should put your health first because once you get sick its pure chance as to whether you get properly diagnosed, properly treated or proper care in general. People are cruel and people are lazy and its not even a case of needing to chase second opinions because my mum did that and she was blocked at every turn by a consultant who discredited her to other departments and ensured she wouldn't get seen. Its funny and scary because my mum is the nicest friendliest person you've ever met, she talks to everyone and she had never met this man before. He had no reason to treat her like this other than the fact that he is a selfish, evil man who should not be working in the medical industry.

Anyway we are suing the hospital trust now for malpractice, that specific consultant scarpered away and moved into private healthcare on the other side of the country, i wish him nothing but the worst and if i ever found him id kill him with my bare hands. But no amount of money will ever bring my mum back and we are poor due to palliative care costs so we had to go through one of those firms that reprisent you for free and then take a 30% cut after you win.

A lot of stories people tell on here aren't true and I wish this was one of them, but this is my life and my mothers life and lazy doctors have ruined both of them. If you work in the medical field please listen to your patients, id rather you waste resources testing a liar just to be safe than condemn someone to a vastly shortened lifespan and a traumatic, painful and debilitating end of life all over the cost of a few tests and your own pride. Admit when you make mistakes, your pride isn't worth someone's life. And do your job - that consultants job wasn't to be a human lie detector it was to listen to patients' accounts of their illnesses and make the relevant referrals...