I’m going for a little walk…

I’m writing this sitting in the car in the hospital car park. I’m due my next CT scan today to check the progress of my little friends in my pancreas and liver. My scan was due at 9am but due to a stupid brain freeze on my part I ate some breakfast at 7.30am before re-reading the appointment letter and realising I’d been told not to eat anything for four hours prior to the scan. So now I need to wait…

I'm kicking myself, I think this is the fourth CT scan I’ve had in the last year, I really should have remembered. But still it gives me a chance to write a quick blog…

The last couple of months have been a lot of fun. I’ve met more friends, drunk more coffee, visited more restaurants, worked more hours, gone for more walks and arranged more holidays… Mostly I’ve felt well. Paracetamol four times a day seems to keep on top of the pain and the pancreatic enzyme supplements I’ve been taking are obviously doing their job because the challenge has been to lose a bit of weight rather than to put it on.

The only persistent side effect from chemo is the numbness in my face, hands and feet and an odd tingling feeling when I stretch my arms. I’ve been keeping a log of this and generally it’s stabilised, with my face feeling slightly better and my feet getting slightly worse. But there's nothing that I can't live with.

I’m still trying to work on my fitness and push up the distance I can walk. So with this in mind I’ve decided to take part in Pancreatic Cancer UK’s Big Step Forward on 17th July.

I’m planning to walk five miles - which is further than I’ve walked since before chemo and enough of a challenge for me without the need to go and check with my doctors! There is a lovely circular route from our house which is almost exactly five miles. I’ll be taking our wee dog Lucy as my companion, and hoping that one of the boys might come along as my support team.

Pancreatic cancer has the lowest survival rate of all the common cancers in the UK (which is obviously not great news for me). And until the last few years, that survival rate had hardly gone up at all.

One reason is that it frequently isn’t diagnosed till relatively late. Often there aren’t many symptoms - this was my experience - so that when it does get picked up, it has already spread to other organs and can't be removed surgically (again, my experience). The pancreas sits deep in the abdomen and is linked by major blood vessels to other important organs. Even if the cancer is small and hasn't spread, removing it surgically involves a major operation.

Of course it's not a competition, every cancer is bad news, but it's also true that pancreatic cancer has received much less research investment than some other cancers.

Pancreatic Cancer UK helps to fund more of that vital research. They also provide support (I’ve found the information on their website really useful) and campaign for better treatment. You can support their campaign for everyone to get that all-important enzyme replacement therapy.

So if you are able, I’d really appreciate it if you could sponsor me on my little walk. I’ve set up a fundraising page but of course you can donate in cash direct to me if you’d prefer and I will pass it on.

Thank you.

This blog is dedicated to the teams at Pancreatic Cancer UK and other organisations working to improve outcomes for people with this disease.