Page 40 • The HERALD • 9th January 2025 v F @heraldpublishing v Health, Beauty & Wellbeing Kit Davison FHP MCFHP MAFHP Qualified Foot Health Practitioner • Corns, Calluses, ingrown toenails, • Athlete’s Foot and thickened toenails. • Toenail and fingernail cutting. Flexible appointments and home visits available. 07752 674591 kdavison@kdfootcare.co.uk http://kdfootcare.co.uk Treatments include: Nail trimmings/filing Reduction of thickened nails Corns/Callus Ingrown toe nails Diabetic Foot Care Mini Foot massage For appointments please call Chloe 07587 071367 Appointments also available at The Waterside Foot Clinic, 177 long lane, Holbury SO45 2PA Chloe’s Foot Care Mobile Foot health practitioner Phone: 07780 642563 or visit: www.watersideacupuncture.co.uk to find out more Waterside Acupuncture Britt Heard BSc (Hons) Lic. Ac. MBAcC • For a variety of health and well-being needs • Free, no obligation 15-minute consultation offered Treatments available at Yelverton Avenue, Butts Ash Local Nurse Urges Public to Bring More Than Hope to People with Pancreatic Cancer, in Dad’s memory Advanced Nurse Practitioner, Victoria Snow from Southampton has joined Pancreatic Cancer UK in calling on the public to help bring more than hope to people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, in memory of her Dad, Tony Snow. Tony was desperate for more time with his family, but the cancer had already spread to his liver by the time of his diagnosis, meaning he wasn’t eligible for the only curative treatment, surgery. He died just a few days before his 67th birthday in September 2023. More than half of people with pancreatic cancer sadly die within three months of diagnosis. Currently, no screening or early detection tests exist to help doctors diagnose the disease and its vague symptoms - such as back pain, unexpected weight loss and indigestion - are also common to many less serious conditions. Tragically, like Tony, 80 per cent of people are not diagnosed until a er the disease has spread. Victoria is working with the charity Pancreatic Cancer UK to highlight its More than Hope campaign, which urges the public to stand alongside them and to demand more for people diagnosed with the disease. Just 3% of the UK’s total cancer research budget is spent on pancreatic cancer. Decades of underfunding has sti ed progress in delivering earlier diagnosis and more e ective treatments. In November 2021, Tony was diagnosed unexpectedly with diabetes and began to lose weight. A few months man, was going to lose his life, and that such a positive person would have to face his own premature mortality.” Having worked in the NHS for 17 years, Victoria knew that her Dad wouldn’t be eligible for surgery, but Tony remained hopeful. He wanted to try anything available to him and started palliative chemotherapy straight away in the hopes it would stop the disease from progressing. However, in August 2023 his oncologist suggested that treatment was now doing more harm than good, and that they should stop. Victoria said: “My Dad came out of what would be his final appointment with the oncologist and said to me, “I’m not going to make it, am I?” Those words still bring a tear to my eye. How do you prepare your Dad for what was about to happen? I put my nurse hat on and spoke to him and my Step Mum as frankly as I was able. It was heartbreaking having to walk the line between medical professional and someone who was going to lose her Dad.” Sadly, Tony went downhill quickly. Victoria, her siblings and stepsiblings all gathered with his 16 grandchildren to say goodbye. In a bittersweet moment, he found out that he would be a Grandad for the 17th time, but he would never get the chance to meet them. Tony died a few days later, on the 4th of September 2023, 15 months a er diagnosis. Victoria said: “We got more time than most, but it makes me sad knowing that there is no screening programme or way to detect pancreatic cancer early. So much money has been invested in cancers like lung and breast which has improved survival but so little goes to pancreatic cancer, where survival is just as poor as it was decades ago. “With no diagnostic tool, people need to know the symptoms and signs to look out for. If it had been detected earlier, maybe my Dad might have had another 25 years with his family. It’s too late for our family but I hope that sharing my Dad’s story could help someone else.” For more information about the More than Hope campaign or to sign to help visit: https://www. pancreaticcancer.org.uk/more-than-hope-sign/ Pancreatic Cancer UK recommends that anyone experiencing one or more of the most common symptoms of pancreatic cancer - back pain, indigestion, tummy pain and weight-loss – for more than four weeks should contact their GP. Anyone with jaundice (yellowing of the eyes or skin) should immediately go to A&E. later, pain and nausea would prompt him to head to hospital, where he was sent for a CT scan. e results showed that Tony had pancreatic cancer that had already spread to the liver. Victoria Snow comments: “We were heartbroken. We had never had anyone die before their time. It was devastating hearing that my Dad, a healthy young Tony and Victoria
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