In Memoriam

Getting to a diagnosis

Elva started having diffuse pains in her right leg, buttock and hip in the early fall of 2021. Initially the pains were diffuse and coming and going but one night in September the pain was so severe that she sought acute help at the hospital emergency room. She was however sent home - without a diagnosis but with strong painkillers including morphine and the message that she should consult her regular physician the following Monday.

Elva did exactly that and during the fall she sought help again and again to get a diagnosis. Initially her physician guessed that Elva was suffering from Sciatica and sent her to a physiotherapist who gave her some exercises. When that didn´t help, her physician instead told Elva that she had an eating disorder and should take better care of herself - neglecting that she had extreme nightly pains (red flag) and was heavily dependent on painkillers to get through the day. Elva shared deep concerns with her close friends that when she had been to her physician she often doubted herself and whether she was just imagining her pains and that perhaps, she was an hypocondriac. Because, that was how her physician made her feel.

Elva'a phycisian then sent her to a radiologist who later admitted (as part of a compensation case) that he didn´t even look carefully at the pictures but just wrote, that her pains could be due to a tilted pelvis. Anchored in this very wrong diagnosis Elva's physician was reluctant to push for other scans that could have showed much earlier, that Elva had a  tumor in her pelvic region. It was not untill mid February - almost 6 months after Elva first sought medical help - and after extreme push to her physician that Elva finally got a scan, that showed a massive tumor that things changed. 

The day the world ended

We will soon post a more elaborate of Elva´s cancer journey here - which hopefully can enlighten others about Ewing Sarcome and how she dealt with getting a very serious diagnosis.