A SINGLE mum from Inverkeithing has said telling her children about her terminal pancreatic cancer “was like watching the light go out of their eyes”.
Agonisingly for Claire Blair, 44, she believes the delay in getting her results back meant she missed out on potentially life saving surgery.
Back in 2022, she began to experience constipation, pains in her stomach and weight-loss.
She was sent by her GP for further tests, during which a scan showed there was something on her pancreas. A biopsy confirmed that this was cancer, but Claire did not get her results until seven weeks later.
“Initially they said they would be able to operate and that they would remove three quarters of my pancreas and remove my spleen, but I had to have a PET scan first.
“A week after this, I was called in.
They said 'It is too late; it has already spread to the liver'. If I had got the results back in the two weeks they originally said, perhaps I could have had surgery.”
After having missed out on this potentially life-saving operation, Claire decided to begin chemotherapy.
This was done in the hope of shrinking the tumour to give her as much time as possible with her two kids.
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Claire said: “I knew I had to tell my children at this point. It was very emotional.
“It was like watching the light go out of their eyes and I remember thinking 'Oh God, they are never going to be happy again'. I kept thinking about what they were going to have to watch me go through.”
In May last year she was told that the tumour was no longer visible on the scan. Sadly, during a follow-up in February, Claire was given the devastating news that the tumour had returned.
She has restarted chemotherapy to try and shrink the tumour once more.
To raise awareness of the cancer, in the hope of raising the money needed to fund early detection and new treatments, Claire has joined ‘Gavin and Stacey' star, Alison Steadman, and former world boxing champion, Amir Khan, for a new appeal.
They all feature in a new video for Pancreatic Cancer UK’s Double Donations Appeal, which launched yesterday (Tuesday).
All donations to the Double Donations Appeal between June 25 and July 2 will be matched up to £170,000, by a group of generous philanthropists.
The money raised will support research into early detection and new treatments for the disease.
Claire said: “People are being made to wait far too long to get a diagnosis, or to get treatment.
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“Pancreatic cancer spreads so fast, there really isn’t any time to spare. If we are to improve survival rates, it needs more funding.
“Survival rates for breast cancer keep improving and that’s because it’s well funded. I just don’t understand why cancers with low survival rates aren’t getting the same attention.
“It’s not the most common cancer but it is the deadliest and it’s worrying that, even though I had a lot of common symptoms, no one suggested I might have it.
“I fight every single day to be here as long as I can for my family. I hope with appeals such as Double Donations, people in the future won’t have to do the same.”
Pancreatic cancer is the deadliest common cancer and around 887 people in Scotland are diagnosed with the disease each year.
Unlike other cancers, no screening or early detection tests for pancreatic cancer currently exist to help doctors.
Tragically, its vague symptoms - such as back pain, unexpected weight loss and indigestion – mean that in 80 per cent of cases, the disease goes undetected until after it has spread to other parts of the body.
You can support the Double Donations appeal here.
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