A Fife mum with terminal cancer has revealed she may have missed out on a potentially life-saving operation due to a five-week delay in her biopsy results.
Claire Blair, from Inverkeithing, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2022.
The results of her biopsy took seven weeks – two-and-a-half times longer than initially expected – to confirm the devastating news.
By then the disease had also spread to her liver.
Had the results arrived quicker, Claire may have been able to have an emergency operation to take the cancer away.
Claire, 44, a single mum to Amiee and Thomas, said: “Initially (medics) said they would be able to operate and that they would remove three-quarters of my pancreas and remove my spleen, but I had to have a PET scan first.
‘It was too late – the cancer had already spread’
“A week after this, I was called in.
“It was too late – it had already spread to the liver.
“If I had got the results back in the two weeks they originally said, perhaps I could have had surgery.”
With surgery not an option, Claire began chemotherapy in the hope it would shrink the tumour and give her more time with her kids.
She said: “I knew I had to tell my children at this point. It was very emotional.
“It was like watching the light go out of their eyes and I remember thinking, ‘Oh God, they are never going to be happy again’.
“I kept thinking about what they were going to have to watch me go through.”
In May 2023, following four months of gruelling chemotherapy, Claire was told that the tumour was no longer visible.
However, during a planned follow-up scan in February, she was told the tumour had returned.
She has since restarted chemotherapy in the hope it will shrink the tumour again.
Fife mum joins Gavin and Stacey actress and boxing champion for pancreatic cancer campaign
Claire has now teamed up with Gavin and Stacey actress Alison Steadman and two-time world boxing champion Amir Khan to promote Pancreatic Cancer UK’s Double Donations Appeal.
The appeal hopes to raise much-needed funds to aid research into early detection and new treatments for the disease.
Unlike other cancers, no screening or early detection tests for pancreatic cancer currently exist to help doctors.
Its vague symptoms – such as back pain, unexpected weight loss and indigestion – mean that in 80% of cases, the disease goes undetected until after it has spread to other parts of the body.
Claire said: “People are being made to wait far too long to get a diagnosis or to get treatment.
“Pancreatic cancer spreads so fast, there really isn’t any time to spare.
“If we are to improve survival rates, it needs more funding.
“I fight every single day to be here as long as I can for my family.
“I hope with appeals such as Double Donations, people in the future won’t have to do the same.”
Dr Chris Macdonald, head of research at Pancreatic Cancer UK, says pancreatic cancer treatment has been “underfunded and ignored for too long”.
He added: “We are closer than ever before to research breakthroughs, but we cannot allow this momentum to fall to the wayside.”
Conversation