A mother of two who waited weeks for the results of a PET scan, only to be told she had stage 4 cancer, has said she felt like she was not a “priority” for the health service.
Emma Aspell was first diagnosed with cancer in the summer of 2023 when she found a lump in her breast and went to have it checked.
She was seen within 10 days and found the process was “all very quick”.
“I was diagnosed with a triple negative breast cancer - which is the most aggressive type of breast cancer that you can get,” she explained on The Claire Byrne Show.
“And I was sent for a mastectomy in a single mastectomy in September, I went through chemotherapy and radiation, finishing up in May 2024.”
It is a cancer with a high recurrence rate and Ms Aspell was told she would continue to have regular medical appointments in case it returned.
In 2025, something else showed up on a scan.
“Unfortunately, I had to chase the results of that scan for seven, nearly eight weeks before I got an answer on it,” she recalled.
“It was discovered that there was a nodule, at the time that they actually thought I may have had a completely separate lung cancer.
“After a PET scan, it showed the cancer showing up in a lung biopsy, but the wait time for PET scans was quite huge.
“I was told it could be up to six weeks and before I could have a PET scan, so obviously living with that was quite difficult.”
In the end, Ms Aspell decided to go private and the scan was carried out within three weeks.
“I was told around the end of June that it had shown up that there was cancer in my lung,” she said.
“It was then a further three weeks wait to get a lung biopsy to find out if I was essentially a new cancer that I had a possibility of fighting or a stage four.
“Unfortunately, it was metastasised breast cancer in my lung, which meant that I was stage four.”
Treatment
Ms Aspell started chemo in September and has a positive view of her treatment so far.
“Luckily enough, it seems to have been working,” she said.
“I've done four rounds of it and I'm now in immunotherapy once every six weeks.
“I have no cancer, thank God, anywhere else at the moment; I have a nodule in my lung that has shrunk.
“I've actually just being accepted on a trial, a clinical trial to have sabre radiation done.
“So, my aim is to get myself to NED, which is ‘no evidence of disease’ or ‘no evidence of active disease’.”
Diagnosis
Ms Aspell’s aim is to 'keep the cancer at bay as long as possible' but is upset at how slow the health service was to inform her of the results of her scan.
Reflecting on the experience, she feels like the health service should have prioritised her as someone who had already had cancer and that she should not have been left feeling like a "drama queen" for asking for her scan results.
“Somebody rang me back and actually said, ‘Well, actually there is something in that CT scan’,” she recalled.
“I was like, ‘Why was it not checked?’
“And I was told I wasn't deemed a priority, which seemed a horrible thing to hear because I've already had it.
“I already had triple negative, the most aggressive type and the recurrence rate is so high. Surely I should have been a priority for this scan?”
Overall, she feels that her treatment has been “chaotic” - in stark contrast to the last time she had cancer.
“It doesn't feel as safe as it did the first time around,” she said.
In a statement to Newstalk, the HSE said that it “recognises the critical importance of timely access to cancer treatment and the impact that delays can have on patients”.
“The national performance target — that 90% of patients commence systemic anti-cancer therapy (SACT/ chemotherapy) within 15 working days of a treatment decision — is designed to promote safe, timely, and effective care across the health system,” a spokesperson said.
“Nationally, 84.9% of patients are seen within this target.
“However, several hospitals continue to experience challenges in consistently achieving this standard.”
Main image: A woman having a mammography scan at a hospital. Picture by: Alamy.com.
