‘Our dad died six weeks after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer – more people should know the warning signs’

The daughters of a 58-year-old Manchester man who died of pancreatic cancer just six weeks after his diagnosis have urged others to learn about the warning signs of the “deadliest common cancer”.

Emilia Rocky, 27, a multimedia officer living in Bristol, and Scarlett Bielecka, 28, who works in customer relations and lives in Manchester, are the respective step-daughter and daughter of Andrzej Bielecki who died in February 2023.

Scarlett remembered her father as an “incredibly positive” man, whom she would visit twice a week after her parents split up before she was three. She said he was a “great” father and shared memories of going wild camping together, or Andrzej teaching her to drive when she was a teenager.

According to Emilia, Andrzej started having acid reflux and indigestion for “three or four years” before his diagnosis, which doctors initially advised him to treat with indigestion tablets. But by August 2022, Emilia said Andrzej added a second symptom of a persistent and “dull” stomach ache.

Scarlett said Andrzej went “back and forth” to doctors for months, where he was prescribed more indigestion tablets in September 2022, but Emilia said they “didn’t really do anything”. Andrzej had blood tests at a follow-up appointment, which Emilia said came back “normal”, so he had an endoscopy to take a closer look at his stomach.

Emilia told PA Real Life: “By Christmas Eve, I was at my mum’s house and he was in quite a lot of pain. He’d also lost a lot of weight and was becoming jaundiced.

“He actually felt like he was having a heart attack, so he went back to A&E and they said that it was probably gallstones. He asked to be referred for a scan and that showed he had a blocked bile duct and high levels of bilirubin in his blood, which was causing the jaundice,” she said.

Emilia said Andrzej was sent home and he was referred to have an MRI at the beginning of January 2023, which is how he came to receive a phone call on January 9, confirming his diagnosis of advanced pancreatic cancer.

Scarlett described hearing that news as the “worst phone call” of her life, while Emilia added: “Andrzej accepted it completely, but everyone else was in shock, disbelief, and we couldn’t accept that this could have happened.

“It was the worst nightmare in the world and I couldn’t believe that it was real. Andrzej just wanted to live the last few months that he had as much as possible. He’d accepted what was going to happen and he wanted to spend time with family and friends,” Emilia said.

Over the next few weeks, the daughters said they embarked on several last trips with Andrzej that served as a good “distraction”, including a week’s campervan holiday around Scotland and a stay at an Airbnb in Chippenham.

Throughout this time, Emilia described feeling “shocked” at Andrzej’s condition, including loss of appetite and subsequent loss of weight, as well as vomiting and immobility. Emilia added: “But he was always very positive and he didn’t want to ever worry people or bring the mood down.”

By mid-February, Emilia said, Andrzej and Suzanne visited her in Bristol by train, but he was more withdrawn and in a lot of pain, so she drove them back to their home in Derbyshire within a few days.

Emilia said this drastic change caused Suzanne to call the district nurses, who encouraged Scarlett to urgently come to say her goodbyes to her father.

“When I went up to see my dad, he was so ill and almost completely unrecognisable,” Scarlett said.

Scarlett said Andrzej managed to say he loved her and she said it back, which was the last interaction she had with her father before he died.

That same night, Emilia said she stayed over and noticed that Andrzej was “restless” and experiencing “severe delirium”, which was “really worrying”. She added: “It was horrible seeing him that uncomfortable.”

The next morning, Emilia said her mother woke her up to let her know that Andrzej was gone. But when she entered his room, he had “a smile on his face” and was “completely different” from the way she’d seen him the night before, which she said felt comforting.

In the aftermath of Andrzej’s death, Emilia said she approached the charity Pancreatic Cancer UK to share his story, including his wish for his ashes to be scattered on the beach at the end of the Camino de Santiago in Spain, which he completed twice.

Both Emilia and Scarlett – and Suzanne, and Emilia’s boyfriend, Jamie – completed a 100km charity walk along the same Camino route in honour of Andrzej, which Emilia described as “one of the best things” she’s ever done.

According to Pancreatic Cancer UK, the disease is the “deadliest common cancer” and more than half of people die within three months of diagnosis. About 80% of people with the disease are not diagnosed until after it has spread to other parts of the body, often meaning treatment is no longer possible.

Scarlett said: “It’s not a cancer that people really talk about.”

Emilia added: “If Andrzej had got diagnosed any sooner, I don’t know if it would have really changed how long he had left, but it would have given him so much more time to do more that he loved. He just didn’t have the time.”

For more information about pancreatic cancer, visit Pancreatic Cancer UK’s website here.