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Aged 51-60
Interview LC43  

Interview LC43

Age at Interview: 54
Sex: Male
Age at Diagnosis: 53
Background: Engineer in nuclear power station, married, 1 child.
Brief outline:Diagnosed with mesothelioma in April 2003, followed by left extra-pleural pneumonectomy (left lung removed, together with chest lining, diaphragm, and lining round the heart, and replaced with Gore-Tex).


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Having worked with asbestos he explains the process of claiming compensation from his employer.

 



Yes as soon as I was diagnosed with mesothelioma the lung cancer nurses and the doctors who I was seeing all said that I should be looking into claiming compensation because mesothelioma is generally only caused by exposure to asbestos. And if you've been exposed to asbestos as I was, probably thirty years, ago it's generally down to employer's negligence. At the time, because I was still coming to terms with being diagnosed with a terminal illness I didn't want to sort of muddle my mind up with other things. I thought that claiming compensation would involve forms and things like that but in actual fact one of our nurses, although she wasn't allowed to recommend a solicitor she suggested that there was one in our local town who was a specialist in that field. And I spoke to him on the phone and he seemed very understanding and seemed to be very knowledgeable about it. And so we decided that we'd go and see him and it's been very easy. He, because he's a specialist in industrial disease claims, he's very understanding, he knows that he can't talk to me for too long because I get tired and generally he's just presenting things for me to approve and sign. We've done a lot of that by email which has made it easy and the, the claim has been going really well. And when we first went to him I said that  I didn't want to have the bother of claiming and he said to me "Well you have to decide whether you want to make the claim so that you get the money in your lifetime or whether you wait until you die and your dependants claim." And so that was, we thought well we'll probably want to claim to give us a quality of life for the rest of the life we've got. And so it's all been fairly plain sailing.
Karol Sikora - Lung cancer
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