A mum with incurable lung cancer has said “no one ever joined the dots of my symptoms until it was too late”. Jules Fielder, 40, from Hastings, experienced a series of what she now knows to be potential lung cancer symptoms: back pain, shoulder pain and a lump in her neck. It was not until months later, however, that she was finally sent for tests.
She said: “I feel lung cancer is still very much associated with men, and especially men who smoke or who work with asbestos. “It’s a really dangerous misconception because when someone like me goes to the doctor with symptoms, we’re fighting against these stereotypes..
. and then it’s too late.” Jules went on to receive the devastating news that she had stage 4 lung cancer which had spread to her spine and pelvis.
She said: “No one ever joined the dots of my symptoms until it was too late. Each symptom was treated individually rather than one potential cause. “My back pain was treated as sciatica.
The pain in my shoulder was thought to be tennis elbow and the lump in my neck was dismissed as a swollen gland. “I feel these non-respiratory symptoms, coupled with my age and the fact that I had never smoked, is why my lung cancer was caught late.” Jules is undergoing therapy to treat her lung cancer.
Dubbing it her “magic medicine”, she is responding well to treatment and is living life the best she can, including recent holidays to New York, Mauritius and Rome. Jules with her son on a recent holiday to New .
