- guardian.co.uk, Sunday March 17 2002 01.05 GMT
- The Observer, Sunday March 17 2002
The symptoms started two years ago, with night sweats so heavy he woke up in the morning with his bed soaked. Edward Browning, from Surrey, kept going to his GP but they did not suspect it was a brain tumour that would only be diagnosed when it was so large doctors gave him just two days to live.
Browning's sad case is an all too common one for Britain's cancer patients, who have deluged The Observer since our first exposé of Britain's cancer services two weeks ago. Like many, Browning found it impossible to get the treatment he needed until it was too late.
In January last year Browning started getting bad headaches, and kept going to his GP. 'It was so bad, he was vomiting and falling over - the doctor just didn't do anything,' said his widow Beryl.
They went to their local hospital accident and emergency ward, but doctors there also told him it was a migraine and to go home.
He ended up back in A&E, taken by ambulance, and again the doctor said it was a migraine. Only after a shouting match, and the intervention of another doctor, were tests done. They showed that he had a brain tumour almost as large as a tennis ball, five other smaller ones, and the cancer had spread. The doctor told him he probably wouldn't last the weekend.
He died six months later. He was 52 and had four children. 'The way he was treated was unbelievable,' said Beryl.
