“some doctors still believe it is a death sentence – and for some it is – but if people are diagnosed early enough, it doesn’t have to be.”
Stunt is not a natural campaigner. During chemotherapy, she hated sitting in the waiting room overhearing conversations about other people’s cancers and treatments. “Call it selfish if you like, but I didn’t want to admit I was a patient. I didn’t want to share their misery. I didn’t want anyone to make me feel survival wasn’t possible. it was a way of remaining positive. I saw how dire the statistics were but I didn’t believe they applied to me. I kept telling myself: I am a statistic of one. I was young, my chances had been improved by surgery and with every chemotherapy session, I visualised the drugs attacking any stray cells.
“at the end of my treatment, we went to Greece. I deliberately didn’t treat it as ‘the holiday of a lifetime’ because I was going to have lots more holidays.”
Stunt was an apparently fit 41-year-old when the symptoms started. first, it was upper back pain and she thought she had strained something. “I felt I had a tennis ball strapped to the middle of my back. then the pain began to radiate round to the front and to intensify. Eventually it stopped me from eating and I started to lose weight.”
Pancreatic cancer is notoriously difficult to diagnose because the early symptoms can be unspecific. in Stunt’s case, doctors wrongly and variously suspected dyspepsia, irritable bowel syndrome, gallstones and pancreatitis before a scan – arranged privately – revealed a “mass” on her pancreas which tests later showed to be malignant. “I knew I had a pancreas and roughly where it might be, but that was about all,” she says. “the surgeon told me they ‘hoped’ to operate. it never occurred to me this might not be possible until the night before surgery. for the first time, I felt frightened.”
Eighty per cent of her pancreas was removed and as a precaution, all of her spleen. the surgery left her diabetic – though not all patients are – and chemotherapy brought on early menopause. A small price to pay, she feels. three years on, a rare survivor of the disease, she has helped set up Pancreatic Cancer Action, a charity to raise awareness among clinicians, the public and government.
“the index of suspicion urgently needs to be raised among primary doctors,” she says, “and the public needs to know about the symptoms and the risk factors – obesity, cigarettes, diabetes and a family history. I had none of the risk factors. I was just unlucky. My great good fortune was to be fast-tracked through diagnostic tests by private medical insurance so that everything happened within a month.
“My doctors have never given me a prognosis and I have not asked. I probably ‘know’ as much as they do. they just look astounded when I come bounding into the consulting room. I realise the cancer could come back but I have to assume it won’t. Don’t get me wrong: it does scare me, especially when I’m waiting for the latest test results.”
Pursuing her doctorate had come to symbolise recovery and for a year she commuted to Imperial College, London, every day from her home in Surrey. but it was a mistake. “What happened to me was still raw with the family. then I merrily disappeared off to London and was not back till late. I couldn’t work from home because I needed to be in the lab most days. it began to affect my boys [Nick, now 14, and James, 17]. they had faced the prospect of losing me to cancer; now they were effectively losing me to research.”
She has put the degree on hold to concentrate on the campaign. With the help of specialists, the charity has already started an education programme and is also campaigning to increase funding for research into early diagnosis. “Pancreatic cancer has been pushed into the too-hard-to-deal-with category,” says Stunt. “it has been significantly underfunded for years.”
Mr Neville Menezes, consultant pancreatic surgeon at the Royal Surrey County Hospital, Guildford, is frustrated that, despite great progress in the treatment of pancreatic cancer, the survival rate remains stubbornly low and has not changed for 30-40 years. “the only potential for cure is to take the cancer out, if you can,” he says. but we pick up patients when the disease is so far gone you cannot operate. only 10 in every 100 patients with pancreatic cancer can be operated on. the million-dollar question is: how can we get patients to us early? the only answer is greater awareness – among GPs, hospital doctors and the public.”
There is a fine balance, he warns, between frightening people into thinking that an indigestion attack may be pancreatic cancer and alerting them to the key symptoms, notably a combination of jaundice, back pain and weight loss.
“Sometimes when I am talking to people with a poor prognosis, I feel dreadful survivor guilt,” Stunt says. “but I feel I have been given a chance to help others. I want people to see me, three years on, and to have hope.”
Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Week is November 22-28; pancreaticcanceraction.org.
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