Understanding Bile Duct Cancer
- A father of one from Leicester, England, was diagnosed with bile duct cancer after it was mistaken for gallstones, and now, his family is campaigning to raise awareness for this rare cancer.
- Bile duct cancer, also known as cholangiocarcinoma, is a rare disease that's both incurable and increasingly lethal over time.
- The cancer forms in the bile ducts, which carry the body's enzymes to break down fat to other organs. Only when a doctor can altogether remove the tumor or tumors from the body is survival a possibility for patients.
- While it can occur in younger people, bile duct cancer is typically found in older adults, over the age of 70, like Tony.
Tony Oakes visited his general practitioner, who noticed that his skin was "yellow," according to Tony's daughter, Natalie Oakes, 34.
Read More"They did another scan and that's when they told him (Tony) he had cancer in March (2021)," his daughter added. "We weren't allowed in the hospital because of the lockdown. He didn't know how to tell us."
"We didn't hear about bile duct cancer before; we didn't know anything about it. We were never given a prognosis for it and told how serious it was. It's an odd type of cancer."
Natalie said that her father's treatment was "awful," as he underwent a procedure to insert a stent into his bile duct. However, the procedure failed six times. "They did finally get a stent in, but he had lost a lot of weight at this point and was weak," Natalie said. So, he was sent home to get stronger.
But once he was home, he spiked a fever and the stent placed inside his bile duct was blocked, so Tony was rushed back to the hospital. He was there for three weeks, very ill and hallucinating, Natalie recalled. He would later lose his battle with bile duct cancer on May 28, 2021, at 74 years old.
"The day he died was horrendous," Natalie said. "It was a strange day because we went to see him the previous day and they wanted us to sign a DNR (do-not-resuscitate order), which we did. He sat up in the chair and was talking."
Natalie paid tribute to her father when speaking with StokeonTrentLive: "Dad was very fun-loving and adventurous. … He was always up for a laugh."
"I used to call him after work and talk through my day and he'd normally make some silly joke about it," she added. "I'm going to miss that."
Natalie added that it is very important to raise awareness for bile duct cancer, as it is "an incredibly rare cancer and the prognosis isn't very good. … We need to get people talking about it and understand what the symptoms are."
Symptoms of bile duct cancer include:
- Abdominal pain
- Yellowish skin (like Tony)
- Weight loss
- Generalized itching
- Fever
- Discolored urine and stool
Understanding Bile Duct Cancer
Bile duct cancer, also known as cholangiocarcinoma, is a rare disease that's both incurable and increasingly lethal over time.
About 8,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with this type of cancer every year, according to the American Cancer Society. This disease has a higher incidence rate in Southeast Asia due to an infection that can lead to bile duct cancer.
The cancer forms in the bile ducts, which carry the body's enzymes to break down fat to other organs. Only when a doctor can altogether remove the tumor or tumors from the body is survival a possibility for patients.
While it can occur in younger people, bile duct cancer is typically found in older adults, over the age of 70, like Tony.
Palliative care options can include surgery, radiation, stents (like in Tony's case) and chemotherapy. This is a standard treatment plan given the advanced age of most patients at the time of diagnosis and the low five-year survival rate for the disease.
How to Cope With Losing a Parent to Cancer
Everyone goes through the stages of grief at their own pace. When you lose a parent to cancer, especially if it happens at a young age (like Natalie losing her father to bile duct cancer), that feeling of loss and sadness can really linger.
Sadness is Not Always a Bad Thing Coping After Losing a Parent to Cancer
But that doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. Camila Legaspi lost her mom to breast cancer when she was in high school, and told SurvivorNet that the tragedy of losing a parent as a teenager kind of defined her high school experience.
However, after she went off to college, she was able to turn the immense pain that she felt into inspiration for creating.
"I actually took this sadness and let it motivate me," Camila previously told SurvivorNet. "I learned that it's OK to be sad sometimes. It's OK to carry sadness with you … it's not always a bad thing. It makes you who you are and it gives you a story to tell and it helps you teach other people to cope with their sadness."
Contributing: SurvivorNet staff reports
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