A young mum has revealed that she was diagnosed with cancer after doctors told her that the back pain she was experiencing were pregnancy cramps.
Mazeda Aktar, 29, has now been diagnosed with an inoperable terminal cancer, after hospital staff dismissed her concerns.
Known to her family as Dina, the mum-of-two said she went for months with back pains and terrible headaches. And with each visit to A&E with excruciating pain, the mum's concerns were simply dismissed.
Tragically, it was discovered that she had stage four lung cancer just two weeks after giving birth to her son, report MyLondon.
It took four months for staff at Queen’s Hospital in Romford to refer Dina to a neurologist, after the extent of her illness became clear in November.
A doctor only went on to apologise to the family, and said that they had made an "error" in examining a critical X-ray scan.
Now, the 29-year-old is desperately seeking to travel to Japan for alternative treatment, after she was put on palliative care by the NHS.
Speaking about her late diagnosis, her brother Imad said: “I do understand in at least 75 per cent of lung cancer cases they get detected late, but the service we received from the NHS is beyond belief.
“I don’t want to slate them overall, it’s no individual’s fault. What we really want out of this is an awareness that if anyone, regardless of if they’re pregnant or not, comes in to complain once a week to A&E to complain of severe migraines, they need to be put through that MRI and CT scan machine immediately. For Dina, the cancer had spread and that’s what was causing the migraines and her loss of vision.”
Dina first noticed something was amiss in April, when she was a few months pregnant.
She began experiencing headaches and coughing fits, which led her to visit A&E on a weekly basis.
But, despite her insistence that something was wrong, she was told: “It’s just pregnancy-related, don’t you worry”.
She was then given head injections to help with the migraines, but later began to develop extreme back and pelvic pain - which would often leave her bed-ridden.
It was only in August that she was eventually referred to a neurologist at Queen’s Hospital and underwent an MRI scan during the first week of September.
While it showed a growth in her brain, the doctor said “they didn’t know what it was”, and informed her they would undertake another one after she’d given birth.
Meanwhile, after losing 60 to 70 per cent of her vision in both eyes, she was referred to Moorfields Eye Hospital in Old Street.
After a second MRI in October, Dina was called into Queen’s Hospital and told that the growth was now “really extensive” and that she needed to undergo a biopsy.
Imad continued to say: “They also did an X-ray at that time at King George’s Hospital. They said the X-ray came back clear but we’d still need to do a biopsy, and booked it in for two weeks' time.
“I had a word then, I said ’this isn’t fair, you need to do a biopsy as soon as possible’. In between this, she was also in and out of Moorfields with lost vision, and all this time it was the cancer, growing behind her eyes and causing the fluids to build up. Fast forward to the end of October, the results came back and they said it’s stage 4 lung cancer, there’s nothing we can do about it.
“The doctor actually said ‘Unfortunately, we made an error with the X-ray, there was something on the X-ray that wasn’t picked up on’.”
Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust’s Chief Medical Officer Mamta Shetty Vaidya said: “We are very sorry Dina’s cancer has reached this stage before it was detected. We are investigating the care we provided so we can learn lessons and help other patients in the future.”
Tragically, news of her diagnosis overshadowed the birth of her son.
Just two weeks after giving birth, on November 1, she was told she had inoperable Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (EGFR positive).
Sadly, the cancer had already spread to her brain, bones, back, ribs, eyes and possibly to a lesion in the liver.
And her brother went on to add: “We were basically being passed around three or four doctors."
“Some days we were going to all three hospitals and we were being referred to all different ones, because the doctors didn’t know what the hell was going on inside my sister’s body. All they had to do was a biopsy. Nobody had it in them to think this young lady is constantly complaining of migraines, she’s a non-smoker - maybe we should look into this.”
She is currently undergoing treatment with the NHS under palliative care and has received 10 sessions of radiotherapy to the brain to cut the size of the tumours and improve her eyesight.
However, the most the NHS can offer for her type of cancer is the oral pill Osimertinib, which will not cure her illness but hopes to manage it.
In a bid to save Dina’s life, the family has started looking at alternative options which are unavailable on the NHS, including medical specialists in Japan who offer dendritic cell therapy and NK cell therapy, which would help the immune system fight the cancer cells in the body.
Describing her as “the smartest one out of all of us”, Imad said he would try anything and everything to try and help his sister.
Despite the happy occasion of welcoming her second child, she has been left upset and depressed, too weak to carry her own son due to her illness.
The family has launched a GoFundMe, with the hope of raising £70,000 to cover treatment expenses in Japan, and are hoping to travel there in two weeks.
Dina wrote in her fundraising post: “My whole world came crashing down, I couldn’t even process the birth of my newborn and deal with postpartum. This has not only changed my life but my whole family’s world has also turned upside down and come to a standstill. It came as a massive shock for us all. Lung cancer is generally associated with smokers, however I am a non-smoker.”
She went on to explain how the money will help her and her family, writing: “With your aid in this fundraiser, I hope to be able to have the treatment I so desperately need over the next few months so I can have a chance to live and raise my two boys.
“I will be leaving my 8-week-old behind, and I am willing to bear that temporary separation from my baby boy if it means I can be there for him every day for the rest of his life.” She continued: “As a mother, I am determined to fight for my two babies.”
The family are also now considering legal action for clinical negligence, with Imad saying: “I want the people of this country to know the state our NHS is in. This really means a lot to me, if we can get out there to tell our politicians that the NHS isn’t working in its current state, I need that message to be loud and clear.
"There are thousands of people out there who are in the same situation that me and my family are having to face. If this has happened to my sister, I need this to not happen to anyone else ever again.”
If you wish to donate to Dina's GoFundMe, follow the link here.
