Dad thought he was getting a nice tan and hitting his weight loss goals – until he was given a 7% chance of survival

WHEN David Slater started getting more tired than usual, his family didn't think anything of it.

The dad had recently hit his goal weight and was sporting a nice tan, which gave everyone the impression he was healthy.

But just four months later, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, which has a five-year survival rate of less than seven per cent.

"Learning about pancreatic cancer was heartbreaking as the prognosis is so bad," David's daughter, Lucinda Slater, said.

"I had heard of pancreatic cancer before Dad was diagnosed but I didn't know much about it, or that it had one of the worst prognoses out of the many different types of cancer.

"Once pancreatic cancer is on your radar and affects someone in your family, you hear about it everywhere."

David, from North Tyneside, was on a trip to London in March 2022 when his symptoms first emerged.

"Dad wasn’t feeling very well during the trip, and he has always been full of beans, so it wasn’t like him to feel fatigued," Lucinda, said.

"He was experiencing some pain in his shoulder, and he had lost some weight, but he was trying to lose a few pounds, so we didn’t think anything of it.

"Dad also thought he had been developing a nice tan, but disappointingly it turned out to be jaundice."

In June, he went to see the GP, who initially thought he might have liver cancer.

But tests revealed he was suffering from pancreatic cancer, which is much harder to treat.

Earlier this year Former England football manager Sven-Goran Eriksson was told by doctors he has inoperable pancreatic cancer and has "at best a year to live".

At first, surgeons weren't sure if they would be able to operate.