On November 23, 2019, our Dad suddenly became unwell with stomach pains but we thought he just had a bug. He was admitted into hospital that evening. He was then moved into intensive care and put on life support within 24 hours. After over 6 weeks of fighting he sadly passed away on January 7, 2020.

Dad was diagnosed with acute severe necrotising pancreatitis. The "acute severe" form of the disease makes up 5% of cases, when there is over 30% necrosis of the pancreas. 

Pancreatitis is a disease we had never heard of. The consultants said that the cause of his disease was “idiopathic” (unknown). 

Pancreatitis is catastrophic. It caused a huge inflammatory response throughout his body and multiple organ failure. Over the course of the illness, pancreatitis caused kidney failure, low blood pressure, respiratory failure, sepsis, blood clots, lung damage, infection, and more. 

Dad was on life support and in intensive care for almost 7 weeks. 

The photo on this page is from 7 days before he was admitted into hospital. He was fit and well at only 61 years old and the Doctors said he was able to fight for so long against the disease as he was strong and healthy.

There is NO medical cure - NO magical drug you can take to stop pancreatitis. 

There is only supportive treatment and waiting for the organ to “calm down”, if it ever does. Unfortunately in Dad’s case it was even harder to treat as the cause was idiopathic and the trigger unknown - the pancreatitis progressed and worsened throughout his 7 weeks in hospital and caused complications which led to an open wound in his stomach after an operation.

Pancreatitis needs to be understood more. What causes the idiopathic cases? Why do some suffer so much more than others, as there are varying degrees of the disease? Can a cure be found so that others do not have to go through the trauma and horrendous hospital stay that our Dad and family had to?

This whole experience has been traumatising not just for Dad but the immediate family as well, a cure needs to be found for this horrendous disease.

We are hoping to raise as much money as possible for this charity

Our chosen charity, Guts UK, funds the only research fellowship into pancreatitis in the UK. This research will help find a much needed treatment for pancreatitis that could save lives.