A dad tragically died of cancer after his daughter noticed he kept rejecting her roast dinners.
Sheryll Jones said the 'silent killer' took her 73-year-old dad Arthur shortly after he started missing meals and losing weight. Sheryll said that despite always looking forward to a roast dinner on the weekend, Arthur started turning his nose up at the meal.
Along with the fact Sheryll cared for her aunt during her pancreatic cancer treatment, she noticed something sinister was wrong with her dad, reports the Liverpool Echo.
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Sheryll, 49, said: "I was thinking, 'Something's not right for my dad not to eat my roast dinner'. Each time, he'd go, 'Sheryll, I just can't eat big meals anymore'.
"He was losing weight and needing to go to the toilet more, and me personally, I was concerned. Because of what I experienced with our Irene, my dad's sister, it started creeping up on me that something's not right here, he needed to go and see his GP.
"But he was just a bit of a nightmare to get into the doctors, to be honest." Despite Arthur being in 'extreme pain', he waited until the day after his granddaughter's birthday to check himself to A&E, as to not spoil the celebrations.
After a CT scan, Sheryll feared the worst for Arthur as the surgeon informed them of something picked up on his pancreas, which made her feel sick. "I thought, 'This is it, all over again'. My dad looked at me and he went, 'You're thinking of Irene, aren't you?'"
A few weeks later, Arthur was diagnosed with the fifth most common cause of cancer deaths in the nation, according to Cancer Research UK. Arthur was given just three months to live, with his family deciding it would be best to do so at home.
His daughter moved into her parent's house were she cared for her father alongside other family members. The 49-year-old said it was a 'horrific time' and her "poor dad wanted to kill himself because he couldn't get into hospice".
Sheryll said: "As long as he knew what was happening, he could cope with it. It was the most excruciating pain he was going through, but he was more frightened of losing his mind than anything.
"Towards the end, he started losing his mind. He was looking at us like he didn't know us. He was angry."
The family eventually opted to have Arthur moved to a Marie Curie hospice before his passing on June 24, 2022, where he died with his son by his side as Sheryll had left to walk five minutes to Sainsbury's.
The daughter says his final days were peaceful as she could stop being a carer and instead connect with her father in his final moments. Sheryll said: "As hard as it was, those six weeks, I also felt blessed because some people don't get the chance to tell them they love them.
"Some of those experiences or conversations I had with my dad were so hard. It was unbelievable that my dad could say those things to me without me getting upset, that he loves me and, as far as he's concerned, he's had a good life, he never thought he'd last this long and has a lovely family.
"Some people don't get that."
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