David & Lucy

The timing… it felt like a sign. After visiting dad, my sister Lucy and I sat in the hospital car park, writing our applications. We had to do this for him.

A shock diagnosis

Dad was very fit. He played squash and ran in his early years. More recently, he took up cycling. He was still going out on rides of 60 miles just a few weeks before he was diagnosed.  It made what unfolded even more distressing.

Dad’s sister, Judy, had died of pancreatic cancer in 2012, aged 62. She died just six weeks after diagnosis. It happened so fast that we focused more on her loss than the cause of her death.

Eleven years later, in June 2023, Dad’s smart watch buzzed to say he may have atrial fibrillation (a problem with his heart’s rhythm). He attended the GP who arranged for further tests. His blood test came back within the range of being pre-diabetic, so a referral was sent to the local hospital.

For the rest of 2023, Dad carried on doing the things he loved, unaware of the time bomb in his body. He was cycling, walking and caravanning. On the 27th May 2024, our family walked to town to see my son taking part in the Spring bank holiday parade. Dad didn’t look his usual self and felt unwell. On Wednesday he had bloods taken again and the next day, Dad was told he now had full blown diabetes. He was put on tablets, which didn’t help him at all, and an appointment for a CT scan was scheduled.

On Saturday 1st June, Mum rang 111 as Dad said he couldn’t see properly. He was taken in an ambulance to the hospital where he was put on insulin injections. On the 10th of June, Dad had his CT scan. After a week of absolute torture waiting for the results, Dad got a call to say he needed to get to hospital immediately. It was there that he was told he had pancreatic cancer which had spread to his liver.

Too late for treatment

I tried to stay positive for Dad and our family, but it was devastating. Day by day, things were getting worse. He was eating less. Lucy obsessed over figuring out the best things for him to eat to maintain strength and weight, but nothing worked. The pain intensified. He could barely sleep. He developed awful hiccups – I’ve never known hiccups like it. We found out later this was because his duodenum was blocked by the tumour.

When Dad was diagnosed, I googled it. I read one thing – pancreatic cancer was one of the worst cancers, with a poor life expectancy. That was the last time I looked it up. My heart was broken. Dad was so healthy that Lucy and I thought we had at least 10 years left with him. We thought we had so much more time to make new memories with him and my son.

Dad had his first oncology appointment on the 9th of July. It was obvious to the consultant he was seriously unwell. They arranged a drip, as he was dehydrated, but the department closed at 6pm. Dad was sent home. At this point things took a turn for the worse. He began vomiting, he still had continuous hiccups, and he was in so much pain. He was taken to A&E in an ambulance.

Dad was put on a ward and told he would be fitted with a stent on the 15th of July.  This was incredibly stressful for him as his sister’s experience loomed large in his mind – she had had a stent not long before she died.

On the 14th, hospital staff let me watch the Euros Final with Dad, which I am very grateful for now. Although it was very strange seeing everyone head to the pub with their mates or their family, while I was driving to the hospital to see my dad who was likely end-of-life.

On the 17th we hadn’t heard anything from him. My sister called the hospital and was told he had lost a lot of blood in the night and needed a blood transfusion. My mum and auntie met with the oncologist, raising the problems there had been, and asked that he be transferred to the hospice. He was sent there at 5pm on the 17th of July.

At the hospice, everything was calm, the staff were lovely and his pain was managed instantly. He was finally comfortable. Dad passed away in the early hours of the 18^th July, having spent just nine hours in the hospice. If we had known how little time he had left, we would have pushed for him to go there earlier.

Taking on the London Marathon for Alan

Seeing the pain that Dad went through, as he tried to stay so strong for us all, is a massive motivator for me. Any pain we experience would be a fraction of what Dad was put through. I want to raise money for him to make sure no one has the same experience he did.

Neither of us had run more than 5k until we applied but it’s been brilliant to have something to focus on. We didn’t tell him we were taking it on, as we never found the right moment. We knew he wasn’t going to be around to watch us, and we didn’t want to remind him of that.

He would be so proud, but he would also laugh about Lucy taking it on as she absolutely hates running. For Dad though, she didn’t hesitate when we decided to apply. We had just got through the door of the funeral directors when we found out we both had a place to run for Pancreatic Cancer UK. It was an emotional rollercoaster.