About this episode

Pamela Deasy shares her journey as a pancreatic cancer survivor, discussing her symptoms, treatment, and the importance of listening to one's body.

Pamela Deasy was in her early 40s, working full time and volunteering with the RNLI, when fatigue started dragging her back into bed in the middle of the day. Her bloods were clear. She was told it was perimenopause, then depression. Months passed before a kinesiologist, of all people, pointed at her pancreas — and within days she was in a Cork hospital being told she had a tumour. In this episode, Pamela sits down with Laura to walk through what happened next: the chemotherapy that made her legs turn to jelly, the five and a half weeks of daily radiotherapy that put her on her back in hospital, and the Whipple surgery that took out the head of her pancreas, part of her stomach, part of her intestine, her gallbladder and her spleen. Then the slower, quieter battle that came after — the seven and a half stone she lost, the survivor guilt nobody warned her about, the Survive and Thrive programme that helped her step back into the world, and the small camping toilet she now keeps in her car because that is the honest reality of life after Whipple surgery. Pamela also shares why she co-founded Pancreatic Cancer Ireland, what the signs of pancreatic cancer actually look like, and why…

People in this episode

Host: Laura Dowling

Guest: Pamela Deasy

Topics covered

• pancreatic cancer
• survivorship
• health challenges
• personal story
• medical journey

Keywords

• pancreatic cancer
• survivor story
• chemotherapy
• Whipple surgery
• health awareness

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Pancreatic Cancer Ireland

Places: Cork

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