According to a story from watoday.com.au, Reginald Whiu, aged 73, had been complaining about back pain and was diagnosed with degeneration of the spine by his doctor. This was at Peel Health Campus, and his wife Rosemarie was already skeptical about his treatment. After staying at the hospital for three days, Reginald was released with a supply of laxatives for constipation and pain killers. He was scheduled to a follow up with doctors in a week. At that time, no one knew that the true culprit was multiple myeloma, a rare cancer that affects the plasma cells.
Reginald was back in the hospital only two days later. He was there for five days, but caregivers failed to further investigate his worsening symptoms, even after receiving an ultrasound and blood tests. After he was discharged again, his symptoms got even more severe; multiple myeloma was causing severe abdominal pain and he was starting to lose sensation in his right leg. Reginald nearly overdosed on his pain medication in an effort to find relief.
With his life in jeopardy, Rosemarie called an ambulance for Fiona Stanley Hospital. It was here that Reginald and his family learned that he had multiple myeloma. Generally, neurological symptoms like spinal cord compression (causing his back pain) and sensation problems are rare for multiple myeloma. Before long, Reginald was receiving his first dosings of chemotherapy in order to treat the cancer.
This story highlights a common problem for patients with rare disease. Many rare diseases and cancers do not have defining symptoms that set them apart from more common illnesses, which makes delayed diagnosis and misdiagnosis a frequent problem that, for Reginald, had very painful consequences. However, it can also mean the difference between life and death.
Peel Health Campus has so far done very little to compensate for their mistakes. After contacting the hospital, Rosemarie was given a wheeled walker for her husband to use, but she is respected to return this walker upon his death, a death that might happen sooner than later thanks to the negligence of the doctors there. Hopefully, Reginald’s cancer will respond effectively to treatment.
