A woman whose 'fit and healthy' husband died only three weeks after a devastating diagnosis of cancer has insisted that others never ignore unusual symptoms.
Thelma Ainsworth, 50, said that her husband Jonathan-a 59-year-old doctor and father of their two children's children waited before looking for medical advice for his abdominal pain.
At that time it was too late. Doctors discovered bile duct cancer who 'spread everywhere'.
“It was more advanced than we might imagine,” said Mrs. Ainsworth, a London -based lawyer.
“Although Jonathan was a doctor, he was not immediately checked, he waited until it was too late.
“Once you know that something is wrong, let yourself be checked out as quickly as possible.”
The earliest signs that something was wrong started in 2019, when Mr. Ainsworth – an avid runner who 'always trains' – started complaining about a pain in his stomach.
He didn't do much about it for a few months until he noticed that he was starting to lose weight.
Jonathan Ainsworth, 59, was 'fit and healthy' and 'Always run and train' before he was diagnosed with fatal bile ducts.
When he finally spoke with a doctor, he was referred for a scan that revealed serious inflammation in the liver.
In anticipation of the reference, the specialist in infectious diseases decided to take his own blood, with the results that showed something 'not good'.
“He went to St Mary's Hospital and they said he had cancer,” said Mrs. Ainsworth.
In October 2019, doctors revealed that he had bile ducts, who meet around 3,000 people in the UK every year.
The disease influences the tubes in the digestive system that Bal bears; A liquid that helps the body digest food.
Between 20 and 25 percent of the diagnosis in the earliest stages will survive more than five years, compared to between two and five percent of those who are later diagnosed when the cancer has spread.
Because of the position of the bile ducts in the body, it easily migrates to other nearby organs, such as the pancreas and the intestine.
Bile canal cancer can be symptomless, especially in the earliest stages.
But if it causes problems, signs include changes in your intestinal habits, itchy skin, high temperature, abdominal pain and weight loss.
Although he was a doctor, he left it 'too late' to seek medical help for his stomach pain.
His widow, Thelma Ainsworth, spent years with guilt feelings about not pushing her husband to see a doctor earlier.
Some also notice yellowing of the skin and the white of the eyes – medically known as jaundice.
Within three weeks after Mr Ainsworth's diagnosis, he was 'disappeared', leaving her widow with two young children.
Shortly thereafter she discovered that she was starting to blame herself, convincing that it was her fault for her husband's early death.
“Since the diagnosis and for many months, maybe years later, I blamed myself,” she said.
'[I thought] That it was somehow my fault … because I didn't get him to see himself. '
In 2022 it came to a highlight while she tried to write a children's book – something she wanted to do for years.
She discovered that her grief acted as a 'blocking' for her creative writing and decided to start journaling to help her process the difficult emotions.
These notes became the inspiration for her first memoirs, I am a wolf tonight.
“It was this blockade in me that I felt that I had to let go,” she said.
The book, which she described as 'raw, infallible and honest', investigates themes of loss of cancer, complex sadness, love, resilience and perseverance.
There is “not a good or wrong way to hurt”, according to Mrs. Ainsworth.
But she hopes that her words will offer hope and encourage others to be patient and nice to herself.
'At some point you will reach a stage in which you can process that grief, but it will take years, and I am not unusual in that.
' I hope that my book is useful for anyone who has been in the circumstance where they had to do their best to reveal their inner animal to survive. '
