On the 3rd August 2016 my life changed forever. For some reason it felt as though I couldn’t digest my food. I increasingly felt unwell. That evening I decided that I would go out with my wife for a meal to try & help me feel better. I couldn’t even manage a few mouthfulls of food. I had to keep stepping outside as I was feeling so unwell. When I got home I crawled up the stairs, went into the bathroom & was sick. It looked black. Still feeling unwell I took myself to bed. I concluded that it got a stomach bug & the worse was now over. A while later my wife came to check on me & brought me some indigestion tablets to try & help.
I then fell asleep. I awoke with excruciating pain. My wife called an ambulance & I was taken to hospital. I was in for 3 days & being treated for a gallstone. After 2 weeks I went back for my MRI scan which found a lump they believed to be 15mm in size. I then had a CT scan which confirmed it followed by an endoscopy which revealed I had a neuroendorine tumour.
Fast forward to 16th Nov 2016 & I underwent 10hrs surgery. I has a Whipples procedure to remove half my stomach, 35 percent of my pancreas, part of my bowel, gallbladder, 28 glands & a tumour the size of a golf ball. I was in hospital for 30 days as my stomach stopped working.
Good news is that my surgeon & his team managed to remove everything. I have a huge J shaped scar, I get fatigued easily & suffer from anxiety as a result of the trauma myself & my family have been through. More importantly, I’m alive & here to tell people my story.
