Mother spent two years preparing to die after she was WRONGLY told she had cancer

A mother has spoken of the 'absolute hell' she endured after being wrongly told for two years she had terminal cancer.

Denise Clark, 34, arranged her own funeral and wrote heartbreaking goodbye letters to her sons after she was told the disease would claim her life.

After being given the prognosis at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, she also spent £10,000 attending an alternative therapy clinic in Spain.

She hoped the treatment there would extend her life, giving her more time with her two young boys before she died.

But as the months passed and she continued to feel well, she became suspicious and eventually demanded another scan.

To her total shock, the results revealed the growth in her pelvis was not cancerous - but internal damage from previous cancer treatment she'd undergone.

 

Ms Clarke has now settled a claim for a high five-figure sum after she took action against NHS Grampian.

She said she hoped no-one else would ever endure the nightmare ordeal her family went through.

'I planned my funeral and wrote farewell notes to my boys. It was heartbreaking but I had to do it for my family. No one should have to do that if they don’t need to.

'Hearing them say it was a mistake was amazing  - but it doesn’t give us back the two years of our lives that were made absolute hell.'

Ms Clarke's ordeal began in 2009 when she suffered bleeding, nine weeks into her pregnancy with son Luca, now four.

When she finally got an appointment for tests nearly six months later, in January 2010,  she received the devastating news she had cervical cancer.

With the disease spreading, Luca was delivered at 33 weeks so Ms Clarke could start treatment as soon as possible.  

She went on to beat the disease but in November 2011 she was told she had a huge, cancerous mass in her pelvis and there was nothing more doctors could do.

'They said I'd already had as much radiation as I could have in a lifetime,' she said.

'There was an option for some more chemo - which might buy me some time - but I wanted my boys to remember me how I was, and not rotting away on a couch.

'I was absolutely devastated. We just weren't expecting it at all.'

Desperate, she researched alternative treatments and booked herself into a special clinic in Spain to build her health up as much as she could.

She also began to plan for the future of her two sons, Harvey and Luca. 

'I wrote them farewell letters to say how proud I was of them and told them not to be sad because of all the good times they had spent together.'

She even had family photographs taken to remind them of her.

'I wanted the boys to have fun times and lots of mum memories, like playing football together or having a barbecue. Nothing that cost a fortune.'

She added: 'I didn’t know if I was going to end up dying in a hospital, if I would be at home or how it would happen.'

Then after two years of agony, specialists revealed her recurring health problems were actually due to internal damage caused by high levels of radiation she'd received during her initial cancer treatment.

She said: 'The doctor was there with the test results and my mum burst out crying. I just started to laugh.

'Mum said "how can you laugh?", but it was out of relief,' says Ms Clarke, an oil firm operations manager. 

'I got home and said to my son: 'Harvey, the doctors made a mistake, they are wrong".

'His little face just lit up and he was hugging me the hardest he has ever hugged me.

'He said he never wanted to let me go.'

She added: 'It's a massive relief they made a mistake and I'm OK - but that's two years of my life I'm never getting back.'

She also worries the misdiagnosis had forced her eldest son Harvey, now 10, to grow up too quickly.
'Even now he's still got worries in his head, he says he doesn't want to be without me and tells me not to leave him,' she said.
The misdiagnosis also led to her running up huge debts paying for alternative treatments and her marriage broke down due to the strain of her poor health.
During treatment, high doses of chemotherapy left her needing a blood transfusion and she suffered acute renal failure after medics unnecessarily inserted stents to maintain her kidney function.
Despite this, Ms Clarke added she has nothing but praise for many of the medical staff at the Aberdeen Royal Infirmity  X-ray unit, but said she felt let down by NHS Grampian.

'It wasn't just one department that got it wrong, it was multiple departments. They made mistakes time and time again,' she added.

'Going through something like this gives you clarity on so much.

'All I want now is to see my boys grow up, and watch my babies become the men I know they will be.'

NHS Grampian refused to comment on the case, adding that it was a confidential matter.