Published 4 June 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b2072
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b2072

Practice

A Patient’s Journey

The invisible worm: ovarian cancer

Gill Reeve, patient1, Stuart Mackay-Thomas, GP associate2

1 London, 2 Hampstead Group Practice, London NW3 2QU

Correspondence to: G Reeve gereeve2002@yahoo.co.uk

It took nine months for her GP practice to diagnose Gill Reeve’s symptoms as ovarian cancer. She wants to know why it took so long.

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

O Rose, thou art sick!

The invisible worm,

That flies in the night,

In the howling storm,

Hath found out thy bed

Of crimson joy;

And his dark secret love

Doth thy life destroy.

I was a fit, healthy, active 66 year old writer and peace campaigner, but some indefinable part of me knew that somewhere, somehow, something was seriously wrong. This poem by William Blake came out of the blue in February 2008 when I was asked to write anything I wanted during a neurology test. I had been referred to University College Hospital Neurology Clinic because of the worry that my worsening memory problems might reflect my mother’s history of dementia. Nothing of concern was found apart from hypertension. A reading of the loss of a stone in weight never reached my GP practice.

In September 2007 I had felt intermittent twinges of pain in my right side . . . [Full text of this article]


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