Question: Hi I write about my mother in law who has recently been in hospital with pneumonia. She was in for 6days and has been home for a couple of weeks now. She is 72 years , weight approximately 13 1/2 stone. The doctors said she had it quite bad. She went home to her house and had careers in for 5 days but then they now discharged her. She has been very much part of my life as she lives alone . She was going to come to my house however I work very long hours so it was decided she went home to her house. I suffer with anxiety where she is concerned as I feel she is my responsibility- my husband is not patient with her and she can be quite demanding. I feel a constant worry about her . I have been visiting her often and she usually phones me about 4 times a day. ( normally- when she not ill)
She is going to have a chest x ray in about 4 weeks time to check all is clear. My worry is , will the x ray show she has lung cancer? I don't know why I am thinking the worst? I have read on line the possible symptoms and the only 2 factors are I noticed she has got out of breath when climbing the stairs, not badly though. I have never noticed a problem with her breathing otherwise? Also I noticed that she has found physical activity harder in the last year, ( general house work) however of course she is getting older? Nothing was mentioned in hospital about lung cancer, however I have just got it into my head? When I asked in hospital why do they think she got pneumonia, they said either she just caught it or there could be an underlying cause? I told them she got slightly breathless when climbing the stairs? I think they may have been referring to something like asthma or another breathing illness? Can I ask what is the likelihood of someone who has had pneumonia later learns they have lung cancer on the 6 week post x ray. Also whilst she was in hospital she did have several tests including a chest x ray, would lung cancer shown up at the time? Since she has come home from hospital she has been extremely tired however I realise that this is often the case after suffering from pneumonia? Yours thoughts would be very much appreciated?

Hi Doctor XXXXXXX

Thank you for coming back to me. It is a massive relief that lung cancer would have been visible on the x ray although the hosptical said , things would not have been visible due to fact it was being masked by the pueumonia and that is why a 6 weeks x ray should follow? Perhaps they were referring to other less serious conditions do you think as you believe lung cancer would have definitely showed up and would not have been masked by pneumonia? By the way she smoked 10-15 cigarettes a day years ago but gave up approximately 25 years ago.

As for the other conditions mentioned, like anaemia and diabetes, liver and kidney, I believe they must have tested for this whilst in as they took lots of blood tests.they never mentioned any of these conditions so I got the feeling they were happy with their results? Also I do know blood pressure normal. As for the pneumonia vaccine she had already had
it . Many thanks XXXX