"Cancer patient and carer treatment"

My wife is suffering with an aggressive form on mouth cancer which requires major reconstructive surgery if she has any chance to survive. Post op requires an ICU bed otherwise surgery does not go ahead. On 2 occasions we have been given an admittance date and on both occasions, surgery has been cancelled due to the lack of an ICU bed. Due to holidays, Christmas and New year we are now being advised surgery is delayed until early January at best but is still dependant upon an ICU bed.

It seems we are between a rock and a hard place, the cancer is getting more and more painful to manage and there is a real danger of it spreading into her neck the longer it goes untreated, reducing the chance of a cure by 50%

Our mental well being is also being crushed by these cancellations, the latest of which was only minutes before surgery was due to start.

I cannot persuade my wife that as a result of these delays she has not been handed a death sentence, especially in the context that her aunt, mother and youngest sister have all died of cancer in the last 2 years.

We seem to be no nearer treatment now than we were when she was diagnosed some 8 weeks ago.

Together we face an appalling Christmas and New Year filled with pain and an inability to eat or drink properly and some 3 weeks to ponder on the next possible cancellation and its' consequences.

RPH, we were relying on you to give us hope, so far we have only despair and frustration!