KNOW THE SIGNS
Doctors told my husband to take paracetamol for his ‘stomach ache’ – months later he died from UK’s ‘deadliest cancer’
EXCLUSIVE: Would you know the signs and symptoms of one of the UK's deadliest forms of cancer?
SUFFERING from headaches, stomach pain and loss of appetite, Gordon Robertson struggled to get a GP appointment.
And when he did, he was twice just given antibiotics for a stomach bug.
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It wasn’t until after wife Fiona Googled his symptoms that he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer — and told he had six months to live.
Stories such as Gordon’s are a grim reality faced by too many people who suffer from the disease.
Pancreatic cancer is among the deadliest of the cancers — with half of patients dying within three months of diagnosis.
People are diagnosed very late. Something like 80 per cent are diagnosed by the time the cancer has already spread outside of the pancreas.
Lisa Woodrow, pancreatic cancer nurse specialist
For that reason, it is a disease that few people are aware of and one that GPs do not come across that often — it is only diagnosed 10,000 times a year.
READ MORE ON PANCREATIC CANCER
But it is the fifth biggest cancer killer, with 9,558 deaths annually.
Comparatively, breast cancer, the most common cancer in the UK, is diagnosed almost 57,000 times a year, with 11,500 deaths.
Cancer of the pancreas — an organ located behind your stomach that plays a key role in digestion — claimed the lives of actors Alan Rickman and Patrick Swayze as well as singer Aretha Franklin.
Some 70 per cent of patients do not receive treatment, and most that do can only hope for a little more time to spend with their family.
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Pancreatic cancer nurse specialist Lisa Woodrow, who has worked in the field for 15 years, tells Sun Health: “The five-year survival rate is less than seven per cent.
‘Hitting our heads against a brick wall’
“People are diagnosed very late. Something like 80 per cent are diagnosed by the time the cancer has already spread outside of the pancreas.”
The most common symptoms of pancreatic cancer - as patients share their stories
It makes raising awareness of the disease and its symptoms vital.
Fiona, 60, and husband Gordon should have celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary this year.
Life for the couple, who have a daughter Amy, 22, and lived in Falkirk, was seemingly normal until Gordon began experiencing strange symptoms in March 2022.
The 58-year-old died in December that year, just two weeks after fulfilling his final wish — to see Amy graduate.
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Recalling the first signs of Gordon’s illness, Fiona says: “He would say, ‘Don’t give me so much for my dinner, I feel like I’m filling up too quickly’.
“We went on a cruise in May 2022 and I knew then something wasn’t right. There was all this food, but he was like, ‘I’m not even that hungry’.
“Eventually, one day when he met me at work at the end of June, I just looked at him and said, ‘You look terrible, you just look ill’.”
The construction worker had headaches and severe abdominal pain. He kept ringing his GP, with two doctors prescribing antibiotics for a stomach bug, to no avail.
In July, I Googled his symptoms and said to him, ‘I think you’ve got pancreatic cancer.’ And he said, ‘For God’s sake, Fiona, don’t say that.
Fiona Robertson
Fiona says: “Eating was making his pain worse, so he started eating less. He was taking boiling hot showers that were near enough burning his back because he said it was the only thing that helped get rid of the pain for a while.
“The doctors wouldn’t even give painkillers — they just kept saying, ‘Take paracetamol’.
“I felt we were hitting our heads against a brick wall.
“His clothes were starting to hang off him and still it felt like the doctors weren’t interested.
“In July, I Googled his symptoms and said to him, ‘I think you’ve got pancreatic cancer.’ And he said, ‘For God’s sake, Fiona, don’t say that.
“How could I find something like that yet doctors were oblivious?”
Lisa is frequently asked by patients why diagnosis takes so long, despite them visiting a GP.
The problem is that the symptoms are very common to other disorders.
People with pancreatic cancer see a doctor on average 18 times in the year prior to diagnosis, according to a 2014 study published in the BMJ Open, compared with 14 visits in people of the same age.
The symptoms of back pain, tummy pain and indigestion can often be mistaken for something else.
Lisa says: “The pancreas produces insulin so, if somebody’s got newly diagnosed diabetes or a new deterioration of their diabetic control, that can be a red flag.
“It’s often when a patient goes jaundice (yellow skin) that it’s clear something is wrong.”
Jaundice is when bile has built up in the bloodstream because the bile duct, which sits at the head of the pancreas, is blocked. Bile is produced by the liver, but passes through the pancreas to the small intestine. Jaundice also causes itchy skin, dark urine and pale stools.
Thanks to the inspirational Dame Deborah James, we all know a change in our bowel habits — going more or less often, as well as blood in our poo — could be a sign of bowel cancer.
The Sun columnist, who died in June 2022, five and a half years after being diagnosed with the disease, never stopped urging people to “check your poo”.
But few may be aware that changes to the appearance of your poo can also be a sign of pancreatic cancer.
“People can get stinkier, smellier, floaty poos,” Lisa says.
“That’s because the pancreas produces pancreatic enzymes, which are chemicals that help us digest our food.”
It’s also why people experience wind, gas, bloating, cramps and, therefore, a loss of appetite and weight loss.
Lisa says: “To me, it’s inexcusable, and it seems inexplicable, that somebody has lost so much weight by the time they end up with a diagnosis. Why can’t these things be picked up quickly?”
The one thing he wanted was to see Amy graduate. That night, he was very pleased. He went to bed and never got out of it again.
Fiona Robertson
Gordon eventually had an ultrasound on August 18, 2022 — five months after noticing symptoms — after paying for a private scan just days earlier. He was then sent straight for an MRI.
Fiona says: “That’s when they told us that he had terminal pancreatic cancer. He asked how long he had left, and the doctor said up to six months, maybe. I was raging.”
Fiona accepts that the outcome may not have been any different had Gordon been diagnosed earlier.
But she says at least he would have been given pain relief.
“He wouldn’t speak to us sometimes because he was in so much pain, and would just go to the bedroom,” she says.
“It was just terrible.
“He was quite bad for not telling you exactly how he felt - typical man.
“He would just say ‘it is what it is’.
“Even when we were told at the hospital, me and Amy broke down but he just sat there.
“His lip quivered, but he never broke down.
“The one thing he wanted was to see Amy graduate [November 22, 2022].
“That night we came back, and he was very pleased, he went to bed and never got out of it again.”
Gordon died on December 7, by which point his weight had plummeted from 12st to 4st.
“In the end, he was 58 but he looked like an 80-year-old man,” Fiona recalls.
“His ribcage was sticking out, his stomach was caving in. It wasn’t nice to see him in such a horrible way.
“He was a quiet person, loved his family, loved his football.
“He was always on the go, in the garden doing things.”
‘No word other than horrific’
Early detection of pancreatic cancer is also complicated by the fact that there is no national screening programme and no simple blood test.
When Claire Crothers, 45, from Lanarkshire, suspected that her mum Mary had pancreatic cancer, she refused to wait for answers.
Despite Mary starting to display all the symptoms in January, the family were told in March that it would take six weeks for an “urgent” ultrasound scan.
They too went private, costing £600, and discovered Mary had terminal pancreatic cancer.
Mum-of-three Claire, a self-employed balloon decorator, was staggered by the lack of support her mum received.
She says: “She never saw an oncologist, she never got a biopsy, she was never given the option of any treatment like chemotherapy.
If we could diagnose people earlier, we could treat people earlier, and we could certainly give people longer.
Lisa Woodrow, pancreatic cancer nurse specialist
“They write people with pancreatic cancer off, because they can’t do anything. Doctors told me, it doesn’t change the end prognosis, she’s going to die.
“But she still deserved that time.”
In April, retired teacher Mary was hospitalised with blood clots.
Claire says: “The doctors at the hospital told us that because she had a terminal diagnosis, they shouldn’t even be taking her into critical care.”
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Because of the private scan results and Claire’s fighting, Mary was ultimately offered a space at St Andrew’s Hospice, Lanarkshire, where she passed away in June with Claire and her sister, Fiona, 43, by her side.
She spent the last 60 days of her life there, and Claire couldn’t speak more highly of the care she received, now aiming to fundraise £60,000 in its honour, which you can donate to .
She says: “It was totally different there.
“They managed her symptoms and kept her pain-free.
“She had really good quality time with people, we just made a fuss of her.”
Claire and her sister, Fiona, 43, didn’t leave Mary’s side in the two weeks leading up to her death on June 30.
Mary was a retired teacher but a full-time carer for her own mum and a dedicated volunteer, whose selflessness was recognised by the Scottish Government while in her hospice bed.
But Claire was left with the memory of a harrowing end to her mum’s life.
She says: “It was no other word other than horrific.
“My mum said that she felt like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole.”
Mary missed out on chemotherapy, which only 20 per cent of patients receive, mostly to give them a little more time with families. Even fewer — ten per cent — will receive potentially curative surgery.
Lisa, who works on Pancreatic Cancer UK’s support line, says: “Patients who have a tumour in the head of their pancreas, which is where about 70 per cent of the tumours are, will have something called a Whipple procedure.
“It’s a massive operation, a bit like having heart bypass surgery. It involves removing the head of the pancreas, the bile duct and the gallbladder, and the first part of the intestine.
“If we could diagnose people earlier, we could treat people earlier, and we could certainly give people longer.
“In time, hopefully, we will have new tests which can pick up things like pancreatic cancer at a GP level.”
Pancreatic Cancer UK this month launched a new campaign called More Than Hope.
It is urging the public to petition for more breakthroughs, support and, ultimately, survivors.
In the meantime, Claire will continue raising the flag for her mum, who she says “put up some fight”.
She adds: “Mum would have liked more time, to be able to get home.
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“She was very aware I wanted to raise awareness, and she said, ‘Please do’.”
Sign the petition at pancreatic .
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Signs and symptoms of this killer disease
- Tummy pain
- Back pain
- Indigestion
- Changes to poo: Smelly, floating, pale or greasy
- Unexplained weight loss
- Fatigue
- Worsening or new diabetes
- Jaundice
- Feeling sick
WHAT TO DO: The NHS says you should see your GP if you have inexplicably lost a noticeable amount of weight and you have other symptoms of pancreatic cancer that get worse – or do not get better after two weeks.
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