Last year in May my dad died from pancreatic cancer. We spent nine gruelling months preparing to say goodbye to him. He only lived with it for that short time from diagnosis as once you have symptoms it’s terminal and all that can be done is to blast you with chemo to try and give you a few extra months. But as we all know chemo makes you incredibly ill and your quality of life deteriorates. My Dad, Lawrence, had blood clots, got diabetes and had a stroke which robbed him of his speech and mobility in the last month of his life. This was all because of the cancer. 

To say the last two years for me, and my family, have been the worst is a huge understatement. We’re a year and a half on from when he died, and you think it gets easier, but it’s even more of a reminder of how he’s missed seeing so much the world and how much more of my life he won’t be there for. Since then, life has been different. Instead of popping my head into his bedroom to say bye before work, I now say bye to a picture of him along with his ashes. To hear his voice I have to watch videos of him that he prepared for my family. I still have moments of disbelief and inconsolable moments where my heart feels like it’s going to give up. He won’t be there for my first house, my wedding, to meet my children. Grief is pretty weird to say the least. But grief unfortunately never ends, you just learn to cope with it better so that’s what we’ll do. 

 

Regardless, I can’t help but feel how lucky we were to go through Dads journey whilst he was alive at the time we did... and my heart breaks for the families that have had to, and will endure that through a pandemic. This year because of covid a lot more people are left undiagnosed or with delayed cancer treatments. They can’t have people come to their appointments with them, they can’t be visited in hospital. It’s heartbreaking. So I want to raise a little money for @pancreaticcanuk partially in memory of my dad but also for all the future patients and families that will have to endure this type of cancer.