A pancreatic most cancers survivor battling the illness for a second time has shared the early indicators folks of all ages ought to know.
Charles Czajkowski, 63, a enterprise improvement supervisor for a geotechnical firm from Surbiton, Kingston, has “declared warfare on pancreatic most cancers” after a five-year ordeal with two rounds of the illness – which additionally brought about the dying of his mom Romaulda, aged 78, in 1999.
Mr Czajkowski, who’s hoping remedy he acquired by way of his spouse’s personal healthcare bundle will save his life, is ready to talk to MPs on within the Commons on Wednesday to induce the federal government to supply larger funding for the situation.
He’ll converse alongside 20 others who both have the illness or who’ve misplaced somebody to it as a part of Pancreatic Most cancers Consciousness Month.
After his well being started to say no in 2017, Charles confronted a sequence of delays to his analysis and remedy by way of the NHS till he accessed Bupa healthcare by way of the office of his spouse of 16 years, Jackie Czajkowski.
After preliminary remedy success, in Might 2022 Charles’ most cancers returned and personal oncologists are actually making an attempt to make use of a sequence of medicine, a few of that are unavailable on the NHS, to avoid wasting his life.
Now working to struggle the sickness and assist sufferers to identify it early, Charles is a pancreatic affected person consultant and on the scientific advisory board for Pancreatic Most cancers UK.
He’s additionally a pancreatic affected person consultant for NHS Most cancers UK, as a part of the federal government’s 10-year plan to assist optimise the early diagnostics and early remedy plan for anyone with pancreatic most cancers, liver most cancers or biliary most cancers.
“It’s given me management,” Charles mentioned.
“Pancreatic most cancers has declared warfare on me… so to get again at it, I’ve declared warfare on pancreatic most cancers by having the ability to assist educate and save different folks’s lives.
“It’s an consciousness battle as a result of pancreatic most cancers UK hasn’t had a lot air time and hasn’t had the funding.”
(Gather/PA Actual Life)
Charles’s ordeal as a most cancers affected person started in 2017 when he was identified with sort two diabetes.
Midway by way of that yr, he had a pancreatic assault – also called acute pancreatitis – which, based on the NHS, is a extreme ache which begins all of the sudden within the centre of a affected person’s stomach and can be accompanied by vomiting and a excessive temperature.
For the remainder of the yr, Charles was beneath statement amid repeated pancreatic assaults and he was quickly shedding pounds, dropping from 85kg to round 75kg at 6ft tall.
“One other signal that issues weren’t going proper was that my pancreas wasn’t producing the enzymes and so I began getting what they name pancreatic diarrhea, which is a real signal in case your meals’s not being digested correctly,” Charles added.
Consequently, his GP prescribed Charles Pancreatic Enzyme Substitute Remedy (Pert) which made Charles’ weight steady as he was now in a position to take up vitamins.
From there, Charles was despatched to a sequence of various hospitals for scans and assessments.
Finally, originally of March 2019, additional exams revealed a 10-millimetre tumour on the pinnacle of Charles’ pancreas.
On March 25 2019, Charles met with the pinnacle of the surgical staff at Hammersmith Hospital alongside his spouse and a Macmillan nurse.
“He mentioned to me, Charles, you don’t have continual pancreatitis, you have got pancreatic most cancers,” Charles mentioned.
“That they had a Macmillan nurse there as a result of clearly folks typically go into shock.
“However I all of the sudden simply mentioned, ‘Okay, so what are we going to do about this Professor?’”
The NHS physician defined to Charles {that a} whipple process to take away the pinnacle of the pancreas, the primary a part of the small gut, the gallbladder and the bile duct, would happen two months later.
After researching the survival price for pancreatic most cancers, Charles feared this wait time was a danger so determined to go personal for the remainder of his remedy by way of his spouse’s Bupa medical cowl.
Only one week later, his operation was carried out on the London Clinic Hospital utilizing a Da Vinci surgical robotic.
“I used to be mainly advised to say goodbye to my spouse, as a result of the operation comes with loads of danger,” Charles mentioned.
“So it was very laborious after we each went into the pre-med room as a result of I didn’t know if I used to be going to get up from this main operation.
“However fortunately for me, simply after I was saying goodbye, that they had simply injected me with the pre-med and subsequent factor I used to be out.”
On April 2, the personal operation concerned making 5 holes in Charles’ stomach, that means there may be much less of an increase of an infection, and Charles was out of hospital 13 days later.
A month after that Charles started six months of fortnightly chemotherapy periods, which led to his weight dropping to only round 67kg – earlier than his analysis he was round 85kg. “I regarded skeletal,” Charles mentioned.
“However I managed to stay it out. With loads of laborious work, it’s a must to struggle it, it’s a battle.”
After the chemo, a scan discovered no situations of latest tumours till – firstly of 2020 – one other scan revealed dots on his proper lung and a lymph node swelling near his aorta.
By August 2020, the dots had grown into 10-millimetre tumours, so Charles had a lung ablation – a surgical remedy the place a probe is inserted which can destroy the tumour with excessive warmth or chilly.
The lymph node remedy was extra sophisticated as normal radiotherapy would have additionally touched Charles’ aorta and there was a danger of it rupturing.
As an alternative, originally of October, Charles was handled at Genesis Care in Oxford with a brand new know-how, MRIdian Linac – a directed radiotherapy utilizing an MRI system so collateral harm is minimised.
After 5 one-hour periods over two weeks, the lymph node tumour was gone and there was no harm to Charles’ aorta, that means Charles’ life may lastly return to regular moreover the three-month check-up scans.
At this level, Charles determined to dedicate his life, moreover his work and household, to pancreatic most cancers campaigning, becoming a member of Pancreatic Most cancers UK and turning into a pancreatic most cancers affected person consultant for Genesis Care.
Nonetheless, in Might 2022, a CT scan revealed his pancreatic most cancers had returned in a secondary type.
At this stage, there isn’t a remedy for his situation, however Charles’ oncologist put him again on chemotherapy with two new medication, one in every of which isn’t accessible on the NHS.
After three months of remedy the tumours continued to develop and, in September, Charles started one other spherical of chemotherapy fortnightly.
He’ll discover out if this remedy has shrunk his tumour later this month.
On his go to to parliament, he and others will converse individually to between 60 and 80 MPs who’ve signed as much as the Pancreatic Most cancers UK initiative as a part of their No Time To Wait marketing campaign.
“Our function is to inform our story, mainly, to teach them to allow them to perceive we’d like extra investments,” he mentioned.
Reflecting on his expertise with most cancers, Charles mentioned: “Preventing most cancers is greater than combating it bodily, it’s psychological.
“You need to consider all of the positivity, you will get out of it.
“I’ve travelled all around the world in my job and have been to locations that folks would have dreamt of going, and I took that with no consideration.
“However going by way of most cancers places your complete life into perspective.”