My phone rang as Dad was lying unconscious in his bed in the room next door.

‘Your dad has pancreatic cancer,’ the consultant said solemnly, ‘I’m sorry, but there is nothing we can do.’

My dad, Eamonn, died just six days after that phone call on March 16, 2023, aged 58.

It all happened so quickly.

In November 2022, I noticed Dad had lost weight, but we didn’t think much of it. By the start of December, he got a virus that he just couldn’t shake, leaving him always tired and with acid reflux.

Within a couple of weeks, one side of his face drooped from shingles. We didn’t know it at the time, but his body was busy trying to fight the cancer and couldn’t fend off the infection.

He was in so much pain the first week of January that he went to A&E for a CT scan. 

The results of the CT scan revealed cancer. Initially, it was found in his kidney, so they took a biopsy to try to properly figure out what was going on. But after waiting a couple weeks the results were inconclusive, so they had to do another.

Even though we still didn’t have a full formal diagnosis of cancer yet, and wouldn’t get one for a couple more weeks, we were told in early March that Dad was terminally ill. 

That involved beginning palliative care, which meant multiple visits from many professionals to the flat to make life as easy as possible. He was given a proper hospital bed, visits from his GP, community nursing teams, and palliative care nurses.  

Dad lived on the second floor but could barely walk so he rarely went out. Thankfully, he was popular and had many visitors. 

Then on March 10, we finally received the call to confirm the biopsy results and the formal pancreatic cancer diagnosis. By this point, it had been three months since he first went to the GP. It was devastating.

In those final days, he was in and out of consciousness. The last thing he said to me was ‘Love you too’, when we put him to bed one evening and I said goodnight. He must have slipped into full unconsciousness around March 12.

The next day, a nurse told us he was likely going to die in the next 24 hours, but Dad’s best friend, Neal, was visiting a few days later. So he held on.

Sure enough, Neal arrived and – even though Dad was comatose – he put his hands up. It was as if he was trying to let us know he was still listening.

We all said goodnight to him, and my step-mum Georgina whispered in his ear, ‘It’s time now babe, you can go, we’re all going to be OK’. 

Twenty minutes later, he’d slipped away. 

Weirdly, it was incredibly peaceful to be with him. After a while, we all did what he would have wanted us to do: Popped a bottle of bubbly and all sat together drinking, making jokes with periodic tears of sadness.

Devastatingly, six months after his passing, my step-mum found out she had bowel and liver cancer.

Seeing what dad had been through, Georgina made a point to ask her consultant what her prognosis was. As a result, the silver lining was that she made sure to make the most of the time she had left. 

In the aftermath of their deaths – particularly Dad’s – I realise the difference in care between my dad and Georgina’s was night and day. Georgina was put straight into emergency surgery and started chemo three weeks later. 

We subsequently found out consultants had told Dad a bit more about how the cancer had spread and he hadn’t shared that with us, but it still felt like he didn’t have the full picture.

Pancreatic cancer is the deadliest common cancer. In fact, over half of people with the condition die within three months of diagnosis. 

I’m sharing Dad’s story to raise awareness of the symptoms in the hopes this could save someone’s life. 

So I want to help raise money for early detection research. To do that, I signed up for the London Marathon 2025, which has made Pancreatic Cancer UK the Charity of the Year.

It was as if it were a sign from Dad. He was the one who actually got me into running about a decade ago.

So this feels like the best way to honour my journey and his memory. In fact, he actually did the London Marathon himself in the 90s, often remarking that it was one of his greatest achievements.

I know he’d be so happy and proud of me.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

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