Shane Bibby

In late 2020, when my dad was 62, he contracted Covid and had to isolate for two weeks. His first day of ‘freedom’ was Christmas Eve and he came straight round to my house. When I saw him I couldn’t believe how much weight he had lost in those two weeks. My dad was never very overweight but was actually pleased by the weight loss at the time! However, throughout 2021 the weight loss only increased and alongside this, a routine blood test showed that my dad had developed diabetes. As he continued to lose weight, the doctors put this down to the metformin he’d been prescribed, but then he started experiencing pain in his stomach that radiated to his back and was sent for further tests in early 2022. Nothing came back from these, and when my dad asked the GP ‘could it be pancreatic cancer?’ the GP laughed and reassured him absolutely not.

He continued with back and forth visits to the GP which finally resulted in a scan of his pancreas in October 2022, where sadly my dad was told he had inoperable pancreatic cancer. His cancer was stage 3, having only spread to a few nearby lymph nodes, but due to arterial involvement, was incurable.

Not wanting to worry us, my dad hadn’t told us that he’d been having any testing, and kept his diagnosis to himself for a month before he told my brother and me.

My dad was determined to enjoy the remainder of his life. He began a course of Folfirinox chemotherapy just before Christmas 2022, however after a few rounds, my dad was so poorly he could barely get out of bed. His weight had fallen below 6 stone and seemed unable to recover from one round of chemo before the next, experiencing mouth ulcers that meant he was barely able to tolerate sips of water because of the pain. Thankfully this is when we decided to ring the nurses at PCUK for advice and I truly believe the specialised nurses saved his life. I was assured that he should be being weighed before each round of chemo, something that hadn’t been happening, and gave us the confidence to check with the hospital. Thankfully before my dad’s next round, his dose was reduced by 20% in line with his new weight.

PCUK provided an invaluable service for practical and emotional advice over the coming months. After recovering from the chemo, my dad regained his strength and was able to enjoy so much of 2023, including many holidays abroad and the birth of his youngest grandson in September 2023.

My dad started to experience some jaundice in October 2023 and was fitted with a stent, which unfortunately kept becoming infected. We enjoyed a lovely Christmas all together but during another admission to hospital just after New Year, my dad was told the stent had failed and there was no more anyone could do. My dad came home on 25th Jan, he was in no pain and was laughing and joking, surrounded by family until he went to sleep and didn’t wake up again on 28th Jan 2024. He was brave, funny and loved life right up until the end.