Father, 58, who died six weeks after pancreatic cancer diagnosis suffered from ‘acid reflux and indigestion for four years’ before medics caught the disease

For four years, Andrzej Bielecki struggled with acid reflux and indigestion – but doctors didn’t pick up that he had pancreatic cancer until six weeks before he died. 

Mr Bielecki, 58, is survived by his wife Suzanne, his daughter Scarlett Bielecka, 28, and his step-daughter Emilia Rocky, 27, who are sharing his story in the hopes that it will educate the public about the disease. 

Emilia said: ‘If Andrzej had got diagnosed any sooner, I don’t know if it would have really changed how long he had left, but it would have given him so much more time to do more that he loved. He just didn’t have the time. 

‘This cancer isn’t anywhere near talked about enough.

‘If Andrzej’s story could at least help someone to know the symptoms of pancreatic cancer, it would make something positive come from the situation.’ 

They remember that Mr Bielecki started having acid reflux and indigestion for ‘three or four years’ before his diagnosis, which doctors initially advised him to treat with indigestion tablets. 

But by August 2022, Mr Bielecki added a second symptom of a persistent and ‘dull’ stomach ache.

He went ‘back and forth’ to doctors for months, and in September 2022 he was prescribed more indigestion tablets but they ‘didn’t really do anything’. 

Mr Bielecki had blood tests at a follow-up appointment which came back ‘normal’, so he had an endoscopy to take a closer look at his stomach.

This is when they discovered Mr Bielecki had a hiatus hernia – where part of the stomach moves up into the chest – which doctors thought was a ‘plausible explanation’ for the pain. 

But by mid-December 2022, Emilia said Mr Bielecki’s condition hadn’t improved, so he went to the hospital and ended up being sent home without answers.

Emilia, a multimedia officer living in Bristol, said: ‘By Christmas Eve, I was at my mum’s house and he was in quite a lot of pain. He’d also lost a lot of weight and was becoming jaundiced.

‘He actually felt like he was having a heart attack, so he went back to A&E and they said that it was probably gallstones. 

‘He asked to be referred for a scan and that showed he had a blocked bile duct and high levels of bilirubin in his blood, which was causing the jaundice.’

Emilia said Mr Bielecki was sent home and he was referred to have an MRI at the beginning of January 2023, which is how he came to receive a phone call on January 9, confirming his diagnosis of advanced pancreatic cancer.

Around 10,800 people are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the UK each year, making it the 10th most common cancer in the country.

The pancreas is a pear-shaped gland, about the size of a hand, tucked deep behind the stomach, which produces insulin, a hormone needed to move sugar from the blood into cells, where it can be burned as energy. 

Because of its location – and its relatively small size – doctors often can’t feel a pancreatic tumour during a routine physical exam, which is another reason the disease is so difficult to detect early.

Roughly one in ten pancreatic cancers are caused by being overweight or obese and obesity is the primary driver of type 2 diabetes, accounting for 80–85 per cent of the overall risk. 

Previous research found that around one in five pancreatic cancers are caused by smoking.

Cigarettes, cigars, pipes and chewing tobacco all raise the risk.

Almost half of cases are diagnosed in over-75s – and it is rare in under-40s. 

Emilia and Scarlett said the family then had to wait a week for Mr Bielecki to have an appointment with a consultant, who eventually confirmed the cancer had spread and that there were no treatment or surgery options available. 

He was given just six months to live, and was recommended for end-of-life care.

Emilia said: ‘Andrzej accepted it completely, but everyone else was in shock, disbelief, and we couldn’t accept that this could have happened.

‘It was the worst nightmare in the world and I couldn’t believe that it was real. Andrzej just wanted to live the last few months that he had as much as possible. 

‘He’d accepted what was going to happen and he wanted to spend time with family and friends.’ 

Over the next few weeks, before his death in February 2023, the daughters embarked on several last trips with Mr Bielecki that served as a good ‘distraction’, including a week’s campervan holiday around Scotland and a stay at an Airbnb in Chippenham.

Throughout this time, Emilia described feeling ‘shocked’ at Mr Bielecki’s condition, including loss of appetite and subsequent loss of weight, as well as vomiting and immobility. 

She added: ‘But he was always very positive and he didn’t want to ever worry people or bring the mood down.’

By mid-February, Mr Bielecki and Suzanne visited Emilia in Bristol by train, but he was more withdrawn and in a lot of pain, so she drove them back to their home in Derbyshire within a few days.

Emilia said this drastic change caused Suzanne to call the district nurses, who encouraged Scarlett to urgently come to say her goodbyes to her father.

‘When I went up to see my dad, he was so ill and almost completely unrecognisable,’ Scarlett said, adding he was ‘in quite a delirious state’. 

Scarlett said Mr Bielecki managed to say he loved her and she said it back, which was the last interaction she had with her father before he died.

That same night, Emilia stayed over and noticed that Mr Bielecki was ‘restless’ and experiencing ‘severe delirium’, which was ‘really worrying’. 

She added: ‘It was horrible seeing him that uncomfortable.’

The next morning, Emilia’s mother woke her up to let her know that Mr Bielecki was gone. 

But when she entered his room, he had ‘a smile on his face’ and was ‘completely different’ from the way she’d seen him the night before, which she said felt comforting.

In May, Scarlett and Emilia said the family had a celebration of life instead of a traditional funeral, to honour Mr Bielecki, because he didn’t want people to cry.

In the aftermath of Mr Bielecki’s death, Emilia said she approached the charity Pancreatic Cancer UK to share his story, including his wish for his ashes to be scattered on the beach at the end of the Camino de Santiago in Spain, which he completed twice.

At present, pancreatic cancer is incurable, with life expectancy just five years from initial diagnosis.

It kills because it aggressively invades nearby organs, blocks the bile and intestinal ducts, and spreads via the blood and lymphatic system to the liver, lungs, and abdomen, eventually triggering organ failure.

The pancreas aids digestion and produces hormones, such as insulin and glucagon, which help convert sugar from food into energy.

Pancreatic cancer can inhibit the gland from making enough of these hormones—which can lead to unstable blood sugar levels.

Common symptoms of the incurable cancer include jaundice, when the skin and eyes take on a yellowish tinge, loss of appetite, weight loss, fatigue, a high temperature, feeling or being sick, diarrhoea and constipation.

Research published last year suggested that more than half of patients diagnosed with the six ‘least curable’ cancers—including lung, liver, brain, oesophageal, stomach and pancreatic—die within a year of their diagnosis.

More than 90,000 people are diagnosed with one of these deadly cancers in the UK every year, accounting for nearly half of all common cancer deaths, according to Cancer Research UK.

There are currently no early detection tests and approximately 80 per cent of people are not diagnosed until the cancer has spread, meaning life-saving treatment is no longer possible.