Then life changed forever one Friday morning at 4am in October 2019 … I was awoken by a pain that hit me like a thunderbolt in my abdomen – it was all over my tummy, everywhere was tender and I just couldn’t make sense of it. The pain just kept on getting worse. Despite this I went to work and saw patients that day and kept going all weekend taking my daughter to London for her ballet lesson whilst not being able to sit still, having to get up and pace up and down all the time, with no chance of sleep or being able to eat. I just had to keep going as there was so much to do. It was not until the Monday that I saw my GP, who, like me, could not make head nor tail of my pain, however, we both agreed that it was ‘not right’. I was admitted to hospital immediately to see the Surgical Team and had an urgent ultrasound that afternoon, bloods only showed a high inflammatory marker (CRP).
A large abdominal mass was seen located where I had been having my sore aches for months. I had an urgent CT scan the next day. This was followed by two months of feeling like a ‘bunny in headlights’ as each day brought more worrying news and further urgent scans being ordered producing so much uncertainty with the possibility of many worrying alternative diagnoses being suggested: desmoid tumour; brain tumour; ovarian cancer; bowel cancer to name but a few. Finally, after having had PET-FDG, CT, and Tektrotyd scans along with ultrasounds , an MRI of my head, and a colonoscopy , a provisional diagnosis of ileal NET was made in December 2019.
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