71-Year-Old Man Experienced Stomach Pain on Vacation. He Died Just Weeks Later After Being Diagnosed with Incurable Cancer

NEED TO KNOW

• Tacey Bain’s husband David died two weeks after he was told he had incurable pancreatic cancer weeks after their hiking trip along the Camino de Santiago

• David started suffering from stomach pain while the couple were on a hiking vacation, and received his diagnosis shortly after their return to the U.K.

• The American Cancer Society states that pancreatic cancer accounts for about 3% of all cancers in the U.S and about 8% of all cancer deaths

A British woman has shared how her husband died just two weeks after he was diagnosed with incurable pancreatic cancer following their return from a hiking vacation.

Couple Tacey Bain and her husband, David, 71, were hiking along the Camino de Santiago across Europe when he started experiencing stomach pain, Tacey told the BBC.

Throughout the trip, David’s discomfort worsened and continued after they had flown back to the U.K.

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He asked his wife to call their doctor because he felt unable to manage a phone conversation due to the level of pain he was in.

The pair had to wait three weeks for him to undergo a biopsy, which confirmed that he had pancreatic cancer.

“You don’t get any warning and you have to make the most of whatever time you have got,” Tacy told the BBC.

She alleged to the news outlet that they were told by staff at the hospital, “We can’t do anything, you can’t go home and we are looking for a hospice bed. Then he died a fortnight later.”

The American Cancer Society states that pancreatic cancer accounts for about 3% of all cancers in the U.S. and about 8% of all cancer deaths.

The charity adds that the average lifetime risk of pancreatic cancer is about one in 56 in men and about one in 60 in women.

Common symptoms include pain in the belly that spreads to the sides or back, yellowing of the eyes or skin, itching and dark-colored urine, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Other symptoms of the disease include loss of appetite, weight loss, pain and swelling in the arm or leg, tiredness or weakness and light-colored or floating stools.

Tacey told the BBC that after David had spent five days at St Peter’s Hospice in Bristol, his condition took a turn.

“The effect of the painkillers, medication and the disease was such that we had to stop all visitors,” she said, adding that her husband’s condition deteriorated rapidly and he was “almost unable to communicate.”

On the evening of his death — around five weeks after their European vacation — Tacey told David that she would sleep in the bed next to him.

“After a few minutes, I went back over to his bed and seen that he had gone,” she told the BBC. David spent 12 days in the hospice before he died.

Tacey is now raising money for St Peter’s Hospice by taking part in the Tour de Bristol bike ride, a new fundraising campaign launched by the charity.

The April 18 event will see fundraisers cycle either 24 miles, 40 miles or 62 miles. One of David’s favorite activities was to go cycling.

The hospice told the outlet that patients typically spend an average of 44 days in its care and that it wanted to raise money to help continue supporting those accessing end-of-life care.

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