BEYOND THE DAYS

Before the journey, um, my world was fine. I was feeling good, happy, I had strength. So everything was good. I enjoyed my cycling

So that was very enjoyable, um. A little bit of walking. Uh, enjoyed the sunshine

What started it was that I, I started going yellowish in colour. Which we found out was the jaundice. So I was taken into hospital

And because of the jaundice, they said uh I've got pancreatic problems. And then it all started from there. My initial thoughts were, oh this is not very good

Um, And I didn't know anything about pancreatic cancer. So, to be honest with you, I just had to go with the flow. Except what it was and and allowed their um

Professionals to. Tell me what to do next. On the journey during the treatment has been, I've had to have, uh, basically I've had to

Have uh chemo, but before I had chemo, I was put in the hospital for quite a while, about 16 weeks. And they said that I'm not gonna make it. They gave me 3 days to, uh, 3 weeks to live

It got to a point where they put me into a um. Um, A hospice. And even the doctor at the hospital said, look, you know, we give you a week or so

Uh, but fortunately, thank God in Jesus' name. Um, Everything kind of like. Just carried on and on and then after about 3 or 4 weeks they said look it doesn't, you don't seem to be getting worse

Would you like to go? And I said, yeah, that would be lovely. So they sent me home. And then I stayed at home

And then the next thing they said, well look, you know, you, you fellas from, maybe we can give you chemo. Before they didn't give me chemo because they thought I was just too weak and I wouldn't make it. Um, but now they realised, oh, they thought, well, yeah, you can do chemo, so then I had chemo for about

I don't know, 3 or 4 months. Maybe 6 months. Uh, I came out of that

Uh, from there Basically, I've just uh. My last result was that I don't really need chemo now. So I'm just hoping for the best and everything's OK, it's all dependent on scans that I have to have done and blood tests

The service in has been very good. Um, the first stent I had in, in Doncaster. Came out after a very short period of time, so that wasn't good that

Created a lot of difficulties and I I ended up um. Becoming much weaker, that's why they thought I wasn't gonna last. But then I went to the Northern General Hospital in Sheffield, and they had very new equipment

And they put in a a a a a different type of stint. And thank God in Jesus' name so far it's been fine. Now I'm just hoping for a recovery

I, I have a lot of pain due to the um my digestive system, obviously when you have uh pancreatic cancer, it involves er bilirubin, which is a a substance that's needed in the digestive system. And that's not working too well and. Uh, so I get pains due to um

I think basically because of the um uh because of the uh cancer. uh but other than that, it it's slowly subsiding and I I think hopefully I'm getting better. I don't know if I'll get better back to normal, back to what I was prior to, but uh I'm feeling not too bad, I'm feeling OK

I've got no final reflections or thoughts. I'm just happy to still be around. I was given 3 days to a couple of weeks to live

A year later I'm still here, and as long as I don't have to go through too much pain and anguish, uh, I'm happy just plodding on. Yes, there was a there was a a um a cancer charity that helped me. Firefly was another uh very good charity that helped me transporting me from Doncaster to Sheffield

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