I went from a doctor to a patient overnight after being diagnosed with cancer

But cancer Always on your radar as a doctor, it wasn’t my personal thing.

So when I was diagnosed with intestinal cancer in 2019, it shocked me at the core.

The risk of cancer for someone of my age (39 years old at diagnosis) is 1 in 10,000 and their probability is so small that I never thought I could get it.

In 2015, about a year after my youngest daughter was born, I first noticed something went wrong. I had very occasional pelvic pain and thought it was associated with multiple caesarean section scar tissue.

At first, it was calm and occasional. However, six months before the diagnosis, the pain worsened and I decided to see a doctor.

The doctor doesn’t treat myself, so I made an appointment with my GP and was referred to see a gynecologist and an intestinal surgeon. This all probably took months before the day of endoscopy when the cancer was found.

The diagnosis made me numb. Like many young adults, I felt healthy. And as a doctor, I think I knew there was no blood in my stools and no changes in bowel habits, and I explained the pain to myself.

My emotional wall went up to protect myself and I had little time to catch up with it. Within a week, I moved from diagnosis to scanning to testing to surgery. In the meantime, we continued our efforts to maintain normality.

Going from a doctor to a patient can feel like a leap. I have the knowledge of a general practitioner and an understanding of medical terms, but I’m not a professional colorectal surgeon, so I still had a lot of questions.

For me, knowledge is power, which helps you feel in control. Giving up that control was very difficult for me, especially when it comes to health.

I always needed to know exactly what was going on, but I also needed to trust my team. Maybe I was more ready. On the other hand, I probably knew too much about what to fear.

While waiting for surgery, I experienced movement. I couldn’t really feel what was happening, or maybe I couldn’t, because I was worried that if I stopped everything and processed it, I would never be able to go.

I went into survival mode and my family came with me.

Maybe I was more ready.On the other hand, I probably knew too much about what to fear

I’ve been working all the time and my colleague knew about my diagnosis but didn’t tell the patient about it. Cancer has invaded every aspect of your life and I decided to keep my work intact – it was part of myself and I wasn’t ready to give it up.

I needed more rest to get treatment, but my normal working days did not change. From time to time, this was physically exhausted, especially towards the end of chemotherapy.

However, by immersing myself in the patient’s world, I was able to move away from my own mind and focus on others, and my experience as a patient gave me true empathy and insight into the patient’s perspective.

It was a little rest from my own world. There, everyone spoke to me only my diagnosis.

It’s important for people to remember it I have friends and family with cancer, They are still undiagnosed – talk to them about everything else in life, not just illness. This is what I had to remind people.

When you have cancer, a lot of emotions are involved – all the big things, and often all at once, it can be overwhelming and confusing. I also found that my emotions could be really inconsistent. There is courage and fear, anger and sadness, and one emotion does not cancel another. There is no right or wrong way to feel or deal with it. I comforted it during the treatment.

After undergoing a major surgery in September 2020, I am told that I have no cancer and I am very grateful every day.

Now, what it is to be a survivor of cancer, how to live with anxiety that it may still come back (treatment helps!), And the result of my own experience As I am learning how to be a better doctor for my patients.

I’ve always sympathized with them in many situations, but now they realize that I’ve been sitting in their chair, undergoing a life-changing diagnosis, undergoing major surgery, and undergoing chemotherapy, and I I know I really understand. It also hopes that it means they will not feel lonely.

It took me a long time to think about opening up this part of my life, and as I became more embraced of my situation, I was only able to do so last year.

It works in both ways-I may be more empathetic to the patient, but perhaps they can better see me as a human and as a doctor.

Our purpose as doctors is to always fix things, do something and make it better, but we can’t always do this. But what we can definitely do is sit with the patient.

It is important that we listen to their suffering and journey and be together. In many cases, it’s enough to be with someone during these difficult times.

Dr. Philippa Key is a general practitioner, media doctor and writer. Her latest book, Doctors Get Cancer Too: A Doctor’s Diary of Life and Recovery From Cancer, is published by Summersdale Publishers for £ 8.99. Released on February 11th.

Do you have a story you would like to share?Contact by email jess.austin@ Metro.co.uk

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