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Cuddled up with her daughter, husband and pet cat Betty as they counted down the days to Christmas, Bryony Thomas did her best to raise a smile.
Her little girl Eleni, then just eight, was fizzing with excitement about Santa's imminent arrival, while Bryony and husband Tom reeled from news the devoted mum had pancreatic cancer.
"Looking back at that picture now, it feels pretty surreal," says Bryony, from Stroud, Gloucestershire. "You can see the innocent joy in Eleni's eyes, while Tom and I are trying to keep it together."
Just days before the family took their annual Christmas snap, doctors had broken the news. "The statistics were terrifying," says Bryony.
At just 41, Bryony had made several trips to GPs and hospitals in the years before her diagnosis, desperate to root out the cause of her extreme fatigue. She'd been tested for everything from sleep apnoea and poor thyroid function to coeliac disease and anaemia, spending almost £5,000 on therapy, holistic treatments and private tests to find out the cause of her symptoms.
It wasn't until December 2019, when she noticed changes to her poo and urine and her skin began to turn yellow - that she finally got an answer.
"When the doctor came in to break the news, there were two nurses with him," recalls Bryony. "One was wearing the purple Macmillan uniform so I knew it was cancer. While Tom and I were deeply shocked it was pancreatic cancer, which we knew was the one you don't want to get, we weren't all that surprised. We had known there had to be something behind my symptoms."
While fewer than 7% of people with the disease in the UK will survive beyond five years, according to Pancreatic Cancer UK, Bryony is one of the lucky ones, meaning this Christmas will be truly special.
"December 19 marked five years since my diagnosis so I'm really hoping I can finally start to breathe again in the months ahead," says the 46 year old. "Christmas in 2019 was a blur as we got our heads around what was happening. If I'm honest, having read the statistics I was quite accepting that this was how I'd go.
"But with extraordinary care from the medical team who looked after me once I'd been diagnosed, I've been one of the lucky ones. After so long, the chances of it coming back are considered to be significantly reduced. It's just terribly disappointing that I'm an outlier. People with this disease deserve more than just hope."
Before her diagnosis, Bryony had seen eight GPs about her symptoms. Theories varied, but a common suggestion was that she was exhausted simply as a result of being a busy, working mum.
Then, in early December 2019, she struggled to get out of bed after a visit from friends and could barely eat for a week after.
"Within a few days, my pee was fluorescent yellow," recalls Bryony, who runs a marketing consultancy company, 111. "The day after that, it was like stewed tea. I took a sample to the GP and was sent home with antibiotics for a suspected urinary tract infection."
By that weekend Bryony’s poos had changed colour and she noticed her skin was slightly yellow. She was sent for blood tests and a day later, when her jaundiced appearance was more pronounced, referred to hospital.
"I delayed it for a few hours because Eleni had a Christmas show with her dance group," she recalls. "I couldn't miss it."
Later that day she received her diagnosis. "I went home with Christmas just around the corner and we did our best to keep things normal for Eleni," says Bryony.
"Opening stockings was heartbreaking and, as she jumped into our bed on Christmas morning I really thought it could be our last together. We managed to go to the panto, Jack and the Beanstalk, and even though I was desperately jaundiced and exhausted, I kept going for her."
On December 27, 2019, Bryony answered the phone to discover medics had decided to operate. "I remember getting the call at exactly 5.27pm," she recalls. "Only one in 10 people with a diagnosis manage to have surgery, which is the only curative treatment for the disease, so I knew I was one of the lucky ones.
"I had a 14-hour operation on January 2, 2020, a fortnight after my diagnosis. Six weeks later, chemo began. They found a 3.2cm tumour and the cancer had spread into three lymph nodes and impacted a major vein, so things weren't easy, particularly as the last few months of my chemo happened during Covid. But my treatment, and my surgeon in particular, were wonderful."
Now, having passed five years since her diagnosis, Bryony has joined Pancreatic Cancer UK's More Than Hope campaign to push for more breakthroughs, more support and more survivors. She will run the London Marathon in April 2025, along with hundreds of others, in an effort to raise £2 million to fund research into a pioneering diagnostic test for the disease.
"From my experience and what I've learned about pancreatic cancer, early detection will make a huge difference to patient outcomes," says Bryony.
"I feel incredibly blessed to still be here, and to be looking forward to another Christmas Day and another visit to the panto with Tom and Eleni, who is now 13. But I want that for everyone else too, which is why more funding for research and greater awareness of the disease is so important. Everyone should have the same chance to live that I've had."
Bryony Thomas is a lead voice for Pancreatic Cancer UK's More Than Hope campaign. Find out more at pancreaticcancer.org.uk/more-than-hope-sign
Pancreatic Cancer UK (pancreaticcancer.org.uk) recommends that anyone experiencing one or more of the most common symptoms of pancreatic cancer - back or stomach pain, indigestion, changes to poo or urine, and weight loss – and they don’t know why should contact their GP or NHS 111. Anyone with jaundice (yellowing of the eyes or skin) should immediately go to their GP or A&E
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