Lucy Devine
A doctor who dismissed his cancer symptoms for months, sadly passed away just three months after his diagnosis.
Thelma Ainsworth, 50, said her husband Jonathan started complaining of stomach pain in 2019, but did not seek medical advice straight away.
But sadly, Jonathan's symptoms worsened and in October that year, he was diagnosed with bile duct cancer. He passed away just a few weeks later.
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Thelma, who is a lawyer, author and former RAF legal officer, from London, hopes that telling her husband's story could encourage others to get checked, if they begin to notice anything unusual.
“Jonathan, even though he was a doctor, he didn’t get checked immediately, he waited until it was too late,” Thelma told PA Real Life.
After Jonathan began experiencing stomach pain, he also noticed some weight loss, which led to him being referred for a scan.
While waiting for a referral, Jonathan tested his own blood and ended up discovering he had bile duct cancer.
“He was a doctor, so he decided to do his own bloods, and then one day he came back home and said it wasn’t right,” Thelma explained.
“So, he went off to St Mary’s Hospital and they said that he had cancer – and then, three weeks later, he was gone.
“It turned out to be bile duct cancer, which is very rare, and it had spread everywhere.”
Bile duct cancer doesn't always have symptoms, and they can sometimes be difficult to spot.
However, symptoms can include skin or eyes turning yellow - which can be less obvious on brown or black skin - itchy skin; darker pee or paler poo than usual; loss of appetite; weight loss; feeling generally unwell; feeling tired and a high fever.
“It was more advanced than we could possibly imagine... we were always five steps behind what was going on,” Thelma said.
“Go get yourself checked out.”
Thelma, who is mum to Dominic, 12, and Richard, eight, has since gone on to channel her grief into I Am A Wolf Tonight, the first book in her Surviving Badly series, about cancer loss and grief.
“Since the diagnosis and for many months, maybe years afterwards, I blamed myself, that it was somehow my fault because of our marriage difficulties, because I didn’t get him to check himself out,” Thelma said, explaining that she began writing out 'raw' notes which became the inspiration for the book.
“I realised that it was all playing out like a drama and it would actually do well to write it as a proper memoir, so I started to write it in that vein,” she explained.
“It was this blockage inside me that I felt I needed to release.
“At some point you will reach a stage where you’re able to process that grief, but it will take years, and I’m not unusual in that.
“I hope that my book is helpful for anyone who’s been in that circumstance where they’ve had to go out of their way to reveal their inner animal in order to survive.
“As in Jonathan’s case, once you know that there’s something wrong, get yourself checked out as soon as possible.”