A dad whose skin turned yellow was given the heartbreaking news that he was suffering from a 'silent killer' just days before it became inoperable.
Shaun Walsh, from Huyton, sent a photo of his yellow face to a friend four years ago this week.
As well as his skin and urine changing colour, he started suffering from nausea, weight loss and lack of energy.
The 48-year-old couldn't bare to sit outside on warm days and had wanted to put up flags in front of his house for the Champions League, but was too unwell.
Speaking to the Liverpool Echo, the industrial cladder said: "I was just putting it down to my job and my lifestyle, working six or seven days a week. But I went to the toilet one afternoon just before I finished work, and my urine was brown.
"I couldn't understand why - I'd drunk loads of water because it was hot that day. Then the following couple of weeks, I just got worse and worse."
Eventually he "couldn't handle it anymore" and visited Whiston hospital. Ten days later, his "world fell" when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, aged 44.
Roughly 10,500 people are diagnosed and 9,400 die from it each year, according to Cancer Research UK. More than a third of cases are preventable.
Shaun said: "My heart sank, my heart was broken. I just thought, 'What's going to happen to my daughter?', she was five years of age a the time. I was thinking, 'I need to beat this'."
He was lucky to detect the cancer when he did. Pancreatic cancer is called a 'silent killer' because symptoms usually aren't spotted until it's has grown to a point where treatment is difficult or impossible. Shaun estimates it would have been inoperable if he'd left it another week or two, and he could have been dead within a year.
In the UK, roughly 7% of people with pancreatic cancer live longer than five years after diagnosis, lagging behind countries like Germany, France and the USA, according to Pancreatic Cancer UK.
Within 20 days of diagnosis, Shaun had an operation to remove his pancreas, gall bladder, small intestines and most of his bowel ducts. The surgery was so extensive, he had to take tablets with his food and learn to walk and eat again in the following three months.
Soon after, he was finishing chemotherapy and swimming 2km to raise funds for the Pancreatic Cancer UK charity, which wants the government to find ways to ensure everyone with pancreatic cancer is diagnosed within 21 days of a referral.
He's kept up this fitness since he recovered, saying he takes better care of his health, spends more time with his family, and volunteers on cancer wards to help others who are in his shoes. Now he can look back on the photo of his yellow skin and marvel at his survival.
But Shaun worries about people who've missed out on diagnosis due to the covid pandemic. Roughly 50,000 people with cancer hadn't been diagnosed by the end of 2021, according to Macmillan Cancer Support.
Explaining the impact on this particular cancer, Pancreatic Cancer UK said: "Due to public concern about Covid-19, fears about burdening the NHS and reluctance from GPs to refer, fewer people got the support they needed. And due to the vague and non-specific nature of symptoms for pancreatic cancer, many people may have been reluctant to present to primary care, with symptoms seen as less important than COVID-19."
Shaun hopes more awareness of pancreatic cancer symptoms will help bridge this gap and get people medical help while they still have time to cure the condition. According to the NHS, symptoms include jaundice (skin or the whites of eyes turning yellow), itchy skin, darker urine, paler poo, loss of appetite or weight, fatigue, high temperature, and feeling hot or shivery.
Other symptoms can affect your digestion, such as:
- feeling or being sick
- diarrhoea or constipation, or other changes in your poo
- pain at the top part of your tummy and your back, which may feel worse when you are eating or lying down and better when you lean forward
- symptoms of indigestion, such as feeling bloated
Shaun said: "Most of the time it might not be pancreatic cancer, but are you going to take that chance? Don't pass it off saying, 'I'm going to be alright'. If the symptoms persist for more than two weeks, go and get yourself seen to."
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