‘My wife beat breast cancer at 36 but she died from pancreatic cancer 20 years later – she thought she had indigestion’

The husband of a woman who beat breast cancer at 36 and was later diagnosed with deadly pancreatic cancer at 54 said his wife thought her initial symptom was just “simple indigestion” before the latter diagnosis.

Jason Venkatasamy, 59, a graphic designer living in London, said his wife, Lucy Driver, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005 within six weeks after noticing “oozing on the nipple”, before she had an operation to remove her left breast.

Over the next 15 years, Jason said Lucy had no further major “medical issues”, except for some mild intermittent indigestion problems that she “always used to have”.

But by March 2022, Jason said Lucy “didn’t want to eat anything acidic”, she “struggled” on a big hike they went on for her 54th birthday, and she generally just “didn’t feel good”.

Jason said he thought it might be pancreatitis – inflammation of the pancreas – but within three weeks, Lucy saw her doctor for a blood test before she received a call urging her to “get to A&E as soon as possible”.

Jason told PA Real Life what happened next: “Lucy phoned and she said, ‘I’ve got some news for you. It’s pancreatic cancer’.

“And then she passed me on to the doctor. Once I got off the phone, I just burst into tears on the carriage.

“I knew we were gonna have one hell of a battle on our hands, even though I didn’t know anything about pancreatic cancer.

Jason met his Yorkshire-born wife at a pub in Richmond on New Year’s Eve in 2001 and they exchanged email addresses.

They sent each other emails in the months after, before Jason travelled to France – where Lucy had been living for over a decade – for their first date in March 2002.

By the time Lucy was 36 in 2005, Jason said she started experiencing “oozing” on her left nipple, which led to her breast cancer diagnosis within six weeks.

“It was quite quick,” Jason said, “From going through tests and scans, seeing the doctor… and having an operation.”

Within a year after the surgery, Jason said Lucy was in remission, but she “went back every year” for check-ups.

The pair got engaged in late spring 2006 and then married on September 20, 2007.

In the years since, Jason said: “We were just a normal couple really, going about our lives and working hard.”

He said: “It always makes me think back now if that was a continuous symptom of cancer rearing its ugly head.”

Jason said Lucy’s symptoms intensified around her 54th birthday on March 30, 2022, when she developed an aversion to acidic foods, she struggled with a Seven Sisters hike they did together, and she generally “didn’t feel good”.

Three weeks after her birthday, Lucy went to her GP for blood tests, resulting in a phone call urging her to go to A&E as soon as possible.

“We both still thought it wasn’t cancer,” Jason said. “We just thought it was some sort of pancreatitis or something that could be solved.”

The pair had a follow-up consultation with a private specialist, who Jason said gave them the “bad news” that the cancer was “too big” and Lucy would need to have chemotherapy to shrink it.

Jason said: “When she left the consulting room, she just reduced in size.

Jason said Lucy’s “really strong” cancer treatment from November 2022 saw her develop painful ulcers in her mouth that made eating difficult, causing her to “lose about a stone and a half”.

Her tumour was removed in May 2023 during a 12-hour operation and Jason said the pair were “happy and relieved” to hear it was successful, before she underwent radiotherapy and more chemotherapy after finding a further “mass in the liver”.

Jason said: “We thought we’d dodged a bullet, as it’s very rare to get past pancreatic cancer.”

According to the charity Pancreatic Cancer Action, 50% of people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer will die within three months, and 93% will die within five years.

Within weeks, a follow-up scan confirmed Lucy’s cancer had returned and had spread to her liver again.

Lucy went through more radiotherapy and then chemotherapy, but Jason said his wife’s “body just couldn’t really take that much” more of it by mid-2025, so she decided to stop treatment in September.

On January 3, 2026, Lucy died, aged 57.

Jason remembered: “She was very active in her bed and couldn’t get comfortable.

“I remember thinking I should keep her hydrated so I went to the kitchen to get some water.

“I think she waited for me to get back to the bedroom, and then that’s when she passed away.

In the aftermath of his wife’s death, Jason said Lucy’s workplace raised £6,000 in her memory and he wanted to do something of his own to “mark Lucy’s life in some form”.

So Jason is undertaking a 34-day walk over 800 kilometres via Spain’s Camino de Santiago this August to raise money for Pancreatic Cancer Action.

Jason said: “I really want to warn people that pancreatic cancer is pretty much a death sentence.

“But if you’re lucky enough to notice the early symptoms of indigestion or jaundice and react to it straight away, then you’ve got a fighting chance,” he added.

For more information about Pancreatic Cancer Action, visit their website here: https://pancreaticcanceraction.org/. And to donate to Jason’s JustGiving fundraiser, visit his page here: https://www.justgiving.com/page/jason-venkatasamy-camino