Mum’s own fight after she lost her son to cancer
AMUM who lost her teenage son to cancer has been diagnosed with the disease herself. Claire Abraham is urging women to have a smear test after being diagnosed with cervical cancer less thas two years after her son died from soft tissue cancer.
Carl Scott, 19, had asked medics for help, after suffering with back pain and a lump on his back, and he was told he had a rare type of sarcoma called Alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma.
Tests revealed that the disease had spread across his body and he died at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle on September 4, 2022, three weeks after his diagnosis.
And now Claire is facing her own battle with stage three advanced cervical cancer.
The 40-year-old, who lives in Meadow Well estate in North Shields, said: “I had gone to the doctors as I had been having problems down below and they did examinations. They said ‘It’s possibly cancer.’
“They got me referred to the hospital for MRI and CAT scans and it came back that I had cervical cancer. It had travelled to my lymph nodes and my pelvis area. I was in quite a bit of shock when they first told me.”
Claire has been having chemotherapy every week as well as radiotherapy every day at the same hospital where Carl died. She said: “It’s hard because it’s at the Freeman which is where Carl was. It’s quite hard to go to the hospital every day. It’s hard being on them wards and knowing that Carl was up there.
“I did ask if it was curable. They said they wouldn’t put me through all this if they didn’t think it was curable. But they said if not they can prolong it and give me medication.
“It’s just absolutely tiring, I have lost my hair. It started coming out in clumps so I said I’m just going to brave the shave and get it all cut off.”
Claire said she now regrets never having cervical screening, also known as the smear test, which is offered to women between the age of 25 and 64, and helps prevent cervical cancer.
She said: “I have never actually had a smear in my life. I have been a bit scared to go for them. I have always put them to the back of my mind and I’ve never done it. You think, ‘it won’t happen to me, I don’t need a smear.’
“I think if I had got my smear test I wouldn’t have stage three cancer. I would have still had cancer, but it wouldn’t be stage three. They would have caught it earlier.
“I know loads of people who don’t want to go. I have said to them that they need to get it. I would advise people to go and get their smear test.”
Claire and her partner Angela, 43, have five children between them. Claire is also mum to Cory Abraham, 17, and Angela has Tracey, 23; Bailey, eight; and Carter, five.
She said: “I think they are struggling – Cory mainly with him losing Carl and then getting the news about me.
“The hospital has been great and the staff are lovely. But it takes it toll as I have to go all the way to the Freeman everyday. I won’t get my results until August. It’s getting to the stage where I just want answers but I know I can’t get them yet.”
According to the NHS, the symptoms of cervical cancer include unusual bleeding, changes to vaginal discharge, pain during sex and pain in the lower back or lower tummy.
Claire said Carl was living in Whitley Bay when he started to suffer from back pain in the summer of 2022. She said he looked thin and had developed a lump in the middle of his back.
The pain led to him visiting his local doctors surgery followed by Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital in Cramlington. He was then transferred him to the Freeman Hospital.
Claire said doctors initially thought that Carl had testicular cancer, before later diagnosing him with sarcoma. She said the hospital had to get a specialist doctor in to treat him because the cancer was very rare.
A doctor explained to his family that Carl was seriously ill and not going to get better as the cancer had spread to every part of his body apart from his brain.
Carl had planned to study bricklaying but never came out of hospital after he was told that the cancer was terminal and he had just weeks to live.
I wish I had gone to get mine done now. I would advise people to go and get their smear test Claire Abraham