At 40, Ali Stunt appeared to be in excellent health: slim, energetic and juggling life with two young children. She worked out regularly, ate a balanced diet and had no family history of major illness. So when a routine blood test showed raised blood sugar — something often associated with type 2 diabetes and excess weight — the result was baffling.
Even so, she initially dismissed it as “just one of those things” and carried on as normal.
Ali, now 60 and a charity chief executive from West Sussex, recalls: “At first I didn’t think much of it — I just found it irritating. Nobody suggested it could be connected to anything more serious.”
Doctors did not put her on medication at that stage, instead recommending that she continue eating healthily and take more exercise — advice that simply reflected the lifestyle she already had.
But as the months passed, her blood sugar readings failed to come down. Soon, other warning signs began to appear.
“I developed this odd pain in my back, as if a tennis ball was pressing into the area where my bra band sits,” she says. “It spread round to the front, and after eating I would get a deep, gnawing pain that made me bend double.”
Ali went back to her GP again and again — around seven or eight appointments within a couple of months — yet was told it was likely a pulled muscle, indigestion or perhaps irritable bowel syndrome. She was directed to try over-the-counter treatments including Gaviscon, but none brought relief.
Her symptoms continued to escalate, with diarrhoea and unexplained weight loss added to the worsening pain. “One day my husband found me doubled over and took me to A&E,” she says. “They gave me tramadol and discharged me, but I still had no answers.”
Ali Stunt repeatedly went to her GP with back pain and was told to use over-the-counter remedies
Doctors eventually recommended Ali have an ultrasound, which she decided to have privately after being quoted a four to six week wait
Professor Hemant Kocher, from Queen Mary University of London, says the link between new-onset diabetes and pancreatic cancer is increasingly recognised but not fully understood
Later, an out-of-hours doctor suggested she had pancreatitis – a dangerous inflammation of the pancreas, a gland in the abdomen that produces insulin, the hormone that regulates blood sugar.
He administered morphine and advised her to follow up with her GP the next day.
When Ali was told she would need to wait four to six weeks for an NHS ultrasound, she decided to seek help privately.
‘The consultant later told me that when he saw me in the waiting room, he knew immediately he was going to admit me,’ she says. ‘I was very, very sick.’
An ultrasound and CT scan revealed a 5.5cm tumour on her pancreas.
She was diagnosed with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma – the most common form of pancreatic cancer.
Hearing the diagnosis was devastating – but telling her children, then aged ten and 14, was even harder. ‘They were old enough to Google it,’ she says. ‘One of them shut down and the other screamed that it wasn’t fair. It was the worst thing I’ve ever had to do.’
Within weeks Ali underwent major surgery to remove 80 per cent of her pancreas and her spleen, followed by chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
Looking back, what is striking is that the earliest warning sign – her sudden-onset diabetes – was not recognised for what it might be.
Only later did doctors realise she had never had type 2 diabetes at all. Instead, her raised blood sugar levels had been caused by the tumour damaging her pancreas, affecting its ability to produce insulin and digestive enzymes.
This condition is known as type 3c diabetes – or pancreatogenic diabetes – which occurs when the pancreas is damaged, sometimes by conditions such as pancreatitis or, more rarely, cancer.
Experts say her story highlights a growing area of concern.
Professor Hemant Kocher, from the Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London, says the link between new-onset diabetes and pancreatic cancer is increasingly recognised but not fully understood.
One of the challenges is that type 3c diabetes is frequently misdiagnosed as type 2.
Prof Kocher says: ‘There are no simple blood or urine tests that distinguish between the two. At the point of diagnosis, they can appear very similar.’
Some researchers believe a proportion of people diagnosed with type 2 diabetes may, in fact, have type 3c – particularly if they are otherwise healthy and develop the condition suddenly.
When she raised the possibility of type 3c diabetes with her GP, she was told a diagnosis didn’t exist. It was only after she was referred to an endocrinologist that type 3c was formally confirmed.
Pancreatic cancer remains one of the deadliest cancers, largely because it is so difficult to detect early. In the UK it has the lowest survival rate of all common cancers – around a quarter of patients survive for one year, and just 7 to 8 per cent live for five years.
For many, diagnosis comes too late. Average life expectancy is just four to six months.
Next year, Ali will mark 20 years since her diagnosis – a milestone reached by only a tiny fraction of pancreatic cancer patients. As founder of the charity Pancreatic Cancer Action, Ali has helped persuade health watchdog NICE to include new-onset type 2 diabetes – when combined with other symptoms – in its pancreatic cancer referral guidelines, a significant step towards earlier diagnosis.
Above all, she wants others to be aware of the warning signs – and to push for answers if something doesn’t feel right.
‘You’re a statistic of one,’ she says. ‘It’s your disease, your treatment, your outcome – and the sooner it’s found, the better your chances of surviving.’
