Written 2 weeks ago by Angel Croitor

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People have come forward and told Midlands Today about waiting years for an operation or a particularly complicated procedures. But would you ever expect to wait 113 weeks for a biopsy? What if by the time you received the results it would be too late?

These are some of the worries of Serena Guilfoyle, in Portlaoise, who told Will Faulkner about it on Midlands Today.

“I’m terrified of that long wait because my oncologist told me, up in Dublin, that if you are a coeliac and it’s left untreated – it can cause cancer.”

Serena has had tummy trouble over 20 years and had to have part of her bowel remove when she was 11 in hopes of removing any source of the pain. She continued to have problems with her bowels and when she went back to the clinic the doctor said that “he wasnt there to listen to pains he was just there to check the scar”.

“At thirteen I had a biopsy done and it said that I had coeliac disease and I had to start a gluten free diet – I hadn’t got bad pains and then I moved out of home a few years later and I wasn’t doing diet because I was on my own.”

Selena’s diet got sidetracked by her pregnancy and this meant she was prone to eating things that, should she be suffering from coeliac’s disease, would cause her more pain.

She unfortunately was struck with breast cancer. During her treatment last year she got her blood tests done and discovered that the antibodies needed to combat coeliac disease were perfectly fine. She didn’t appear to be suffering from the disease whatsoever.

“My own doctor told me that she’d refer me so she did – 113 weeks of a wait to be called in and I’m terrified.”

Selena fears that the disease, which she is unsure she even has anymore, may bring on a type of cancer that will end her life in the time it is going to take to get this stomach biopsy done.

How long have you had to wait to see something far more simple than an operation? Tell us at midlandstoday@midlandsradio.fm

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