A physician who ignored his own cancer symptoms for an extended period unfortunately succumbed to the illness just three months after being diagnosed.
Thelma Ainsworth, aged 50, shared that her husband Jonathan began experiencing stomach discomfort in 2019 but delayed seeking medical advice.
Tragically, Jonathan’s condition deteriorated, and by October of that year, he was diagnosed with bile duct cancer. He died a few weeks after the diagnosis.
Thelma, who is a lawyer, author, and former RAF legal officer from London, hopes that by sharing her husband’s story, others will be encouraged to seek medical evaluation if they notice anything out of the ordinary.
“Jonathan, even though he was a doctor, he didn’t get checked immediately, he waited until it was too late,” Thelma recounted to PA Real Life.
Initially experiencing stomach pain and weight loss, Jonathan underwent scans after being referred for further examination.
While awaiting the referral, he took it upon himself to test his own blood, discovering he had bile duct cancer.
Thelma explained, “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.”
“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 can be asymptomatic and symptoms, when present, may be hard to identify.
Symptoms may include jaundice, which might be less noticeable on darker skin tones, itchy skin, darker urine, pale stools, appetite loss, unintended weight loss, a general sense of being unwell, fatigue, and fever.
“It was more advanced than we could possibly imagine… we were always five steps behind what was going on,” Thelma reflected.
“Go get yourself checked out.”
Thelma, a mother to Dominic, 12, and Richard, eight, has since channeled her grief into writing “I Am A Wolf Tonight,” the initial installment of her “Surviving Badly” series, which explores cancer loss and grieving.
“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,” she expressed, noting how she began writing raw notes that eventually inspired 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 further 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.”