Isabella & Lynda

My nana, Lynda

My nana, Lynda, passed away from pancreatic cancer in March 2026. She had lived a normal life; she married my grandad young and supported his career in the RAF. She became a mother and worked for as long as she could in factories and then in a care home, devoting all her life to caring for others.

As much as we loved and appreciated her, we hadn’t realised how much she was carrying our family until her health began to fade.

Prior to her cancer, Nana was always health conscious. She was forever out and about, very active, coming to walk our dog and always cleaning our house unprompted.

Nana was struggling to eat

But from Christmas 2024 onwards, Nana was struggling to eat because she always felt sick. She was vomiting large amounts despite not eating much. She was in pain when food went down because, although she didn’t know it at the time, there was a blockage caused by a tumour. She also lost a lot of weight.

She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer

We were told it was pancreatic cancer and Nana was offered the Whipple’s surgery, but she was too weak to have it straight away. The doctors gave her 8 weeks to build up strength but ultimately she wasn’t well enough to have the surgery.

Nana had a stent put in around March 2025 to bypass the blockage caused by the tumour. She also started chemotherapy. This was to manage her symptoms but also there was a hope that the chemotherapy would shrink the cancer, so she might be able to have the surgery. But unfortunately, she struggled to cope with the chemotherapy and kept missing rounds. The discussions then turned to quality rather than length of life.

The stent became blocked

To complicate things further, Nana’s stent became blocked. The doctors offered her surgery to bypass the blockage, which divided us as a family given how fragile she had become. Despite this, she pushed for it all the way, even when she was weak and tired, she’d wake to reaffirm her stance, pushing herself through even more tests.

She was meant to have an endoscope (flexible tube with a camera on the end) to check the stent. But she was too unwell. She had jaundice, a liver infection, was barely eating or drinking and was still losing weight. She was also often confused, very weak and was in pain. She was receiving end of life care.

Pancreatic cancer took her away from us

Nana passed away just before her 75th birthday and her 50th wedding anniversary.

Her passing has changed me as a person and us as a family in ways I never imagined. It has made me view life in an entirely different way, seeing how easily illnesses like pancreatic cancer can steal it from you. While she showed incredible strength, I watched as cancer took her away from us with every passing day, her ability to eat, think clearly, sleep, be pain free, all things we take for granted.

I thank every individual who cared for her in this time. She was very grateful for her care, often asking us to sneak in presents for her nurses to surprise them.

Things need to change

But a harsher reality is that her tumor was caught too late and chemotherapy only made her weaker. Whilst no one is to blame but this wicked disease, it highlights how much things needs to change. Pancreatic cancer should not be a death sentence. Doctors need better treatment options and not be forced to offer treatments that can cause lots of side effects.

Cancer is the cruellest thing I have ever known. It took my Nana from me, my mum and uncle lost their mother, and my grandad lost his wife which is the hardest fact of all, with their 50th wedding anniversary soon approaching.

It has brought us closer together

Through all of this I remember her incredible strength and determination, it feels like something everyone says but she proved this in every way. She was our glue, holding us all together even when she was facing the scariest thing I could imagine.

Whilst her death has been incredibly difficult for all of us, it has brought us closer together, something I know she would be proud of. At her funeral, there were rows of people I had never met, stories I hadn’t yet been told. Her neighbours stood on the street as she left home for a final time. All of this highlighted to me how much she was loved, because of the love she had constantly shown others.

Thank you for reading her story and I hope this in some way can be used to create some kind of change for better, for future families 💜