Woman wants faster treatment for pancreatic cancer after watching her dad die at 55
Returning home from holiday, Rachael Harland had decided to stop off to see her dad.
The family had no idea that Martin’s pain was actually pancreatic cancer and just nine months later, he would die at the age of just 55.Now Rachael, 28, and her brother Mike, 24, are fighting to raise awareness of the condition described as a silent killer.Most people with the condition don’t experience symptoms until it has progressed too far.
‘By the time he got treatment, it was too late. We can’t bring our dad back but we want to demand faster treatment and to raise awareness of the symptoms to prevent this happening to anyone else.’ Rachael and Mike were determined that their dad could fight this – he agreed to chemotherapy and they looked at surgery, including specialist nano knife surgery that was not available on the NHS. They raised over £11,000 for the treatment.
After the first round of chemotherapy, the family were told that the tumour had grown around an artery and it was now stage four, meaning there was nothing more they could do. Unfortunately it was no longer operable.Rachael adds: ‘It was a massive shock to us – he seemed to be ok and we thought it would be like stage two.’
‘I remember getting a call from him and he said “Rach, they are moving me to a hospice, does this mean it’s the end?”Martin was very weak, frail and in a lot of pain but he wanted to maintain a sense of independence.Rachael explains: ‘They asked him if he wanted to go to hospital as there could be a bleed but at that stage, he knew the trip to hospital would be too much and they wouldn’t be able to do something.
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