A mum planned her funeral and wrote farewell letters to her young sons after being wrongly diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Denise Clark said her life was “absolute hell” after the mistake made by doctors at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary in Scotland.
The mum spent £10,000 seeking a cure at an alternative therapy clinic in Spain and took a final summer holiday with her family.
Baffled by how well she felt, Denise demanded another scan - and it revealed the growth in her pelvis wasn’t malignant as she had been told.
Now, she has received a high five-figure compensation payout after raising a damages action against NHS Grampian.
Denise, who has two sons, Harvey, 10 and Luca, four, said, “Hearing the doctors say it was a mistake was amazing and there is a future now. But it doesn’t give me or my kids back the two years of our lives that were made absolute hell."
She added, “I planned my funeral and wrote farewell notes to my boys. It was heartbreaking but I had to do it for my family. No one should have to do that if they don’t need to.”
The mum added, “The doctor told us the test results and my mum burst out crying. I got home and said to my son, ‘Harvey, the doctors made a mistake, they were wrong’. His little face lit up. He hugged me the hardest he’d ever done and said he never wanted to let me go.”
Denise made as many “mum memories” as possible after being misdiagnosed.
She said, “I wanted to keep things as normal as possible. I felt everything I did mattered more as I didn’t know what was going to happen. I wanted the boys to have fun times and lots of mum memories - like playing football together or having a barbecue.”
Denise said winning her case had been the last chapter in a long fight.
