When Bryony Thomas was told the unimaginable news she had 12 weeks to live, she didn’t pray or instinctively feel she would beat the odds, she accepted she would die.
The entrepreneur, who recently moved to Gloucestershire after nearly 25 years in Bristol, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer just days before Christmas in 2019. Only 7% of people who are given a diagnosis for the disease survive for five years or more.
Her first thought was for her eight-year-old daughter and her husband, having lost her own mother when she was just five years old. Her second was a determination to publish her book before she died.
“I was pretty accepting of the fact I was dying. I am not religious, I didn’t pray and I didn’t think I would be the exception or positivity would beat it; I accepted I would die,” she said. “I was glad I had written the book as I knew there would be a legacy and I was glad there were lots of videos of me because there is almost nothing of my mother, except for the odd photo.”
Her thoughts also turned to her staff and business. Mrs Thomas is the founder of business growth consultancy Watertight Thinking, which she established in 2008, as well as the author of an award-winning book by the same name - and had six people whose livelihoods depended on her company when she became ill.
She had been pitching for funding for the business before being diagnosed, and had one investor confirmed and two more interested. She was on the verge of closing a deal for half a million pounds to turn Watertight Thinking into a software product when she was told she had cancer.
Rather than wind the business down, however, she focused on how she could help her employees. “I didn’t want the house to look like a funeral parlour or for my daughter to be surrounded by flowers and cards, and so we set up a justgiving page [to support the business],” she recalled.
She asked people who were going to spend £2.50 on a card, to donate the amount instead. Incredibly, she raised £17,000 in two weeks and used the money to keep her business afloat. “It was like having a memorial but while I was alive. Everyone was leaving messages about what my work had done and it was just incredible. Mind blowing.”
Being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer
Despite telling her doctor for four years before being diagnosed she had tiredness that wouldn’t go away, Mrs Thomas was told nothing was wrong with her. She had tests done for sleep apnoea and coeliac disease, but was always sent home. It was after carrying out a big speaking engagement in 2019, however, and discovering her urine was “fluorescent yellow”, she started to grow seriously concerned.
“I knew I was hydrated so I knew something was wrong. I went to the doctor and my wee looked like stewed tea. She sent me home saying it was a urinary tract infection.”
The next morning, Mrs Thomas woke up and thought she was “a bit yellow” so called 111 and went to an out-of-hours doctor who did more blood tests. By the following day she was “definitely yellow” so called 111 again and was admitted to Southmead Hospital in Bristol.
“By that time I looked like Marge Simpson. They carried out scans and on December 19 I was diagnosed, and was told I had about 12 weeks to live."
The tumour was on her portal vein, making surgery extremely difficult.
"There is only one cure for pancreatic cancer and that is surgery - there is no other route - and only one in 10 people are eligible because of the location. Surgery is a real long shot and there are very few surgeons who do it.”
But on December 27, while spending time with family over the festive season, Mrs Thomas received a call from the doctors at Bristol Royal Infirmary to say there was a surgeon who was prepared to operate.
“I was thinking it would be the last Christmas I would have with my family," she recalled. "I don’t even know how my husband and I got through that Christmas. I wrote letters before I went into surgery because it is very dangerous and lasted 14 hours. I was very lucky that it was pre-Covid and in Bristol. It is really complex surgery - as complicated or more complicated than a heart transplant.”
Mrs Thomas went in for the ‘Whipple procedure’, which saw the bottom of her stomach removed, two-thirds of her pancreas, her gallbladder and the top part of her intestines, on January 2, 2020. She remained in hospital for two weeks and came out with open wounds that had to be packed. She also underwent eight intensive rounds of chemotherapy. She was due to have 12 but started having fits so the doctors stopped the treatment.
“It was the beginning of the pandemic so I was in a separate room from my husband and the only time I was allowed out of the house was to go to the nurse to get her wounds dressed,” she recalled. “It was a 20-minute walk and it took me an hour, but it was the only time I was allowed out so I would insist on walking.”
Mrs Thomas is now registered disabled. The treatment for the pancreatic cancer has left her unable to digest fat properly or absorb nutrients, and she can’t feel her hands or feet because the chemotherapy has killed the nerve endings in them.
Despite the unimaginable challenge of dealing with the cancer, she published the second edition of her book - Watertight Marketing - in March 2020, on her 42 birthday. Her “very good friend” Cheryl Crichton was looking after the business at the time, and helped with the publication.
“She is fabulous. She got the crowdfunding going, signed off the last edits of the book and got it published,” said Mrs Thomas, who returned to the business by the end of 2020, launching a members club that year. In 2021, she had started to focus again on turning her business into software, bringing in Rachael Wheatley as the new managing director to help.
In March last year, she was also given her first year clear of cancer. A total of 75% of people get a recurrence of pancreatic cancer in two years - and a recurrence with the disease is terminal.
“I burst into tears [when I found out I had the all clear] - it was on the phone because of Covid - and I had a cup of tea because I am British. It took me 20 minutes and I said to my husband ‘you know that means I can build software, right?’.”
She was given her second year clear in March this year and will have her next annual scan in March 2023. She said: “It’s only 7% who make it to five years so hopefully we will get to that.”
Back to business
Mrs Thomas said she is now “as full time as I can” with Watertight Thinking.
“I probably get four productive hours in a day. My brain hasn’t quite caught up with what I can do so everything is taking me longer than I would hope. If I have a really busy day I get a kind of jet lag. For example, if I do an event I need to take two days off. That has really forced me to think carefully about how I use my time.”
But the entrepreneur says she has come back to the business with as much dedication as she had before. “I do genuinely believe that small business is where change happens and I do love doing what I do.”
On the investment side, she admits “money is tight” - and she and Ms Wheatly are “bootstrapping” the business. But despite the challenges, the company’s revenue is already back to where it was - at around a £300,000 to £350,000 turnover - with the goal of reaching £650,000 in the next 18 months.
“I just can’t be bothered about having a conversation with investors about my chance of living,” she said. “It is just not where I need to put my energy. Anyone could die tomorrow. There is no point living as if you are dying and I think making plans is part of life’s joy. You have to create things to look forward to.”
Watertight Thinking is currently developing a strategic planning toolkit for business leaders in the form of an app that will digitise the planning tools Mrs Thomas has developed over the last decade. It will contain growth tools for businesses, based on the frameworks in the book. The app is currently in a Beta testing phase, with Mrs Thomas hoping to move to a fully operational model in the next 18 months.
There are two pieces of advice she has for business leaders - to check they are covered for critical illness insurance and to focus on creating a business that is “energetically sustainable”.
“Your business needs to light you up and you need to keep doing it. Focus on building a company that is energetically sustainable and is nourishing to you and all the humans involved in it,” she said.
Looking ahead, Mrs Thomas is planning to split her time between the business and a charity she wants to set up to raise awareness of the lesser known symptoms of pancreatic cancer. She plans to call it 'Clue in the Loo'.
“One of the symptoms is floating poo. I reckon if you did a straw poll of 1,000 people and ask which of these symptoms you would go to the doctor for, you wouldn’t go for persistently having to flush the toilet. You would go if there was blood, if it was black, if you had diarrhoea or even ongoing constipation. But I certainly wasn’t ever asked. So I am going to get brave about talking about poo," she added.
November is pancreatic cancer awareness month. Research into pancreatic cancer has been underfunded for decades, receiving only 3% of the UK cancer research budget, meaning survival has barely changed in the past 40 years. Pancreatic Cancer UK is calling on people to take part this month in raising vital funds to help get pancreatic cancer noticed and fund research breakthroughs. To find out more, visit pancreaticcancer.org.uk.
