David Gold, 59, claims he was unable to get an appointment with his local GP and so went straight to Leeds General Infirmary, with symptoms of breathlessness, where he had tests
A man has suffering breathlessness claims he was ignored by his local GP practice before finding out that he had cancer.
David Gold, 59, thought that his problem could have been heart related due to a history of cardiovascular issues in his family but in actual fact he had an unusual symptom for cancer of the colon.
And he says he had to self-refer to the local hospital, Leeds General Infirmary, to get checked out after claiming he was told there were no GPs available to see him at his local practice.
“I started to get really breathless when I was out walking and had pains in both arms, but I felt absolutely fine in myself,” David said. “I called my GP and spent an hour and a half on hold. The question that I was asked when they finally answered was, ‘Are you having a heart attack?’ I said, “Clearly not, because I’ve been waiting on the phone for an hour and a half’.
“And they replied to say, ‘Well, I’m sorry, but there aren’t any GP appointments available, and you’re not entitled to one’. It’s a terrible service.” Forced to use his initiative, David contacted his local hospital, the Leeds General Infirmary, and they allowed him to self-refer for testing as he was already known to them because his family had a history of heart problems.
After extensive tests, David was told that they could find no issues with his heart but he needed further checks and he should walk into his GP practice and demand an appointment. His doctor then revealed he would need an urgent referral to a rapid chest pain clinic and that he would need blood tests in advance of an appointment there.
David alleged that the surgery receptionist again frustrated the process. “The GP stood there saying, ‘Mr Gold needs a blood appointment within 24 hours’,” the dad-of-one recalls. “And the receptionist complained, ‘We can’t possibly do that, there’s no availability for bloods for at least two or three weeks.’ And the GP said, ‘No, he’s got to have one. He’s urgent.’ So, I ended up getting a blood appointment the next day.”
That following evening, David received a call to tell him the blood test results showed his iron levels were dangerously low – with doctors shocked that he hadn’t lost consciousness due to the low levels. He was then rushed to hospital for an emergency blood transfusion and iron infusion. A couple of days later he had a colonoscopy which uncovered a cancerous tumour in his colon.
“The tumour was bleeding, which is why they say blood in the poo is a sign of bowel cancer. But because my tumour was at the start of my large colon, my digestive system was sort of getting rid of that and reabsorbing the blood back into my system. It was the constant bleeding that was reducing the iron in my blood,” David said.
David was then offered the chance to take part in FOxTROT 3; a clinical trial led by researchers in Leeds and Birmingham, which gives certain patients a course of chemotherapy before surgery with the aim to improve survival rates. There then follows a further high-intensity course of post-surgery treatment.
“It was a relatively easy decision because my mindset is that if you don’t have people willing to do things differently, you’ll never move forward,” he said. “You obviously want to cure cancer. So that was in my mind, plus the fact that there weren’t any new drugs involved gave me some reassurance. I think if it had been new drugs, I’d feel like I was being used as a guinea pig and the new drugs might not work at all. But that wasn’t the case. It was about giving different combinations and higher doses of the existing drugs.”
The chemotherapy – which involved an intravenous infusion followed by eight tablets a day for two weeks, a process that was followed twice ahead of surgery – was brutal, but worked. David’s tumour shrank by a third, meaning his surgery was less invasive than it otherwise would have been. However, round four of the post-surgery chemotherapy saw him develop painful blisters on his hands and feet and he couldn’t retain food or water.
He was rushed to hospital once again where he received IVs to give him fluids while he regained enough strength to eat again. Having endured four out of a planned six post-surgery intensive chemo rounds, doctors decided not to proceed any further. A year on from his surgery, David, who has been supported by his wife, Anne, and their son, is continuing to recover with no traces of cancer in his body.
Through his experience, he hopes to be able to share advice for others who might have unusual symptoms of life-threatening illness. He has also recently been supporting Yorkshire’s cancer charity, Yorkshire Cancer Research, who funded the trial he benefited from, to promote the importance of early diagnosis.
Bowel cancer is the fourth most common type of cancer in the UK, and Cancer Research UK estimates around 44,100 new cases are diagnosed each year. David said: “What sort of gave me some hope and motivation was that Kate [Princess of Wales] got diagnosed. You hear that and think by golly. She was fit, healthy, young. She probably had the best possible lifestyle you could have, but she still got caught by this damn disease.
“Cancer doesn’t care and doesn’t choose. You look at some ageing rock stars, for example, who have constantly abused their bodies over many years and don’t get it, and you get other people who spend their life living healthily who do. Cancer does prove that you only live once. Your life is the real thing, it’s not a rehearsal. Whilst I wouldn’t recommend anybody to go out and be Cavalier in their approach to life, I wouldn’t recommend that you effectively spoil your life by being over cautious. Be sensible and stay as healthy as possible to mitigate the risk of getting cancer but, ultimately, there are no guarantees. One in two of us will sadly get cancer at some point in our lives.”
