Gary never expected his married life to be brought to an end so abruptly and tragically by pancreatic cancer and appreciates that, for Sandra, any treatment would have been too late to make a difference. 'You and your wife have experienced a lot of what others haven't'," he recalls her saying. Then she went on to say about how she listens to stories of debt, divorce and unhappiness. I thought she hadn't listened to a word I had said. "I remember going to an occupational health appointment and telling the officer all about the worst summer of my life and losing Sandra, and being dumbfounded when she said, 'You're one of life's lucky ones'. His advice to those going through bereavement of a life partner is to "appreciate the positive aspects of what you have experienced together in your life". "At the start it was hard to see the keyboard with tears," says Gary, who found writing Thank God We Met Sandy an important part of his healing process. Its president is Jim Dornan, whose wife Lorna died of pancreatic cancer aged 50 in 1998 its patron is their son, the actor Jamie Dornan. Formed in August 2018, NIPanC is a local group working in partnership with Pancreatic Cancer Action and the Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund to promote awareness of pancreatic cancer, support affected families and fund vital research.
Proceeds from the sale of the book will be given to Northern Ireland Pancreatic Cancer (NIPanC), of which Gary is secretary. He hopes Thank God We Met Sandy will help others affected by the cancer, as well as highlight practical advice some of the common symptoms of the disease. Sandra turned to me and said, 'It's OK, I'm in God's hands now',” recalls Gary, who said his final goodbye to Sandra less than a month later, a week before their 28th wedding anniversary.įive years later, Gary has built on the experience of those terrible days to write a book charting his life with Sandra and the impact of pancreatic cancer. "You could tell by their faces they were not giving us any false hope. A CT scan the next day delivered the news that Sandra had an inoperable tumour in her pancreas and had only weeks to live. However, with pains increasing and having developed jaundice, a visit to the out of hours doctor on July 20 led to a hospital admission. She would tell them she was going on a cruise to Alaska on September 1 and they told her that hopefully by the end of August they would get to the bottom of this and she could go," he recalls. "Throughout May and June 2014 she attended a number of doctor and hospital appointments. Then she had back pain, which crossed into her abdomen and her energy levels dropped significantly. But at Easter Sandra started to get some pain and sickness, but nothing we were terribly concerned with. Newtownards man Gary Carson knows all too well the heartache of pancreatic cancer, after losing his beloved wife Sandra to the disease, at the age of 52. There is no test for pancreatic cancer and sadly due to late recognition of symptoms or misdiagnosis, around 80 per cent of pancreatic cancer patients are diagnosed at a point when the disease has spread to other organs and curative surgery is not an option.
Pancreatic cancer occurs when a malignant tumour forms in the pancreas. In Northern Ireland in 2015, 273 people were diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and due to the low survival rate of just 5 per cent only 14 of those patients are likely to survive into 2020. Forty years ago 3 per cent of people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer survived five years or more. Forty years ago only 46 per cent of women diagnosed with breast cancer survived five years or more– now that rate is 80 per cent. FORTY years ago few children survived childhood leukaemia – now the survival rate is 80 per cent.
0 kommentar(er)
