IBS Awareness Month: “She never got to be the Nana she wanted to be”
Felicity's mum, Roz, was originally diagnosed with IBS, age and back strain before receiving her pancreatic cancer diagnosis.
Mum had suffered from bouts of indigestion and back pain for a while. She saw the doctor several times who put it down to age, IBS or straining her back.
She started to feel weaker around Christmas 2016. Mum and I went to Paris for a weekend in January 2017 and she had clearly lost her appetite by then and was more tired than usual. In early February 2017 whilst on holiday in Tenerife, she ended up in hospital due to stomach pains and feeling weak, but was released and managed to enjoy a few days.
When she came home, she was different and asked the doctor for a scan. The ultrasound showed some shadows on her pancreas and liver, and on the 15th of March 2017, her CT showed the worst; a large tumour on her pancreas and her liver.
My lovely mum deteriorated quickly and passed away at home on the 13th of April 2017. In that period she never moaned and she never cried in front of us. The only time she shed a tear was when I told her I was pregnant. All three of her grandchildren were born in the three years after she passed and it is the greatest sadness that they will never have her around, and she never got to be the Nana she wanted to be. Life just isn’t the same without her and this cruel disease devastated our lives.