A “HEALTHY” dad died just two weeks after being diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer.
Simon Atkins had been feeling bloated and nauseous but doctors assured him he was simply constipated and there was nothing to worry about.
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He was given laxatives and told he’d feel better in a few days.
But the 46-year-old was soon icy cold and vomiting every time he ate, and he had lost so much weight he was “skin and bones”.
Eventually, Simon was diagnosed with appendiceal cancer – but by then it was too late.
The dad-of-two was given two to 26 weeks to live, and he died a fortnight later.
His family want to use his story to educate others on the symptoms to look out for so their loved ones aren’t next.
Simon’s wife Sara told The Sun: “I need people to know that if they feel bloated or show any of the other signs, they need to get tested.
“Simon just got passed from pillar to post and nobody knew. Doctors just kept dismissing him.
“If I can help anybody, then something good has come out of what’s happened.”
Simon first noticed something was wrong in October 2023.
He was in Tenerife for half-term with Sara, their kids Lucie, 13, and Jacob 11, as well as Sara’s mum, dad, brother and his wife.
They were at an all-inclusive resort, where Simon should have been digging into the buffet and enjoying the open bar like everyone else.
But he wasn’t.
“He just wasn’t himself,” Sara said.
“Normally, everybody likes a bit of a drink and all the free food, but he just didn’t want anything.
“He was complaining of being bloated, and he felt constipated and he was getting a bit of acid reflux.”
Being a ‘tough guy’, Simon “powered through” the Spanish holiday.
“He took some lansoprazole and just kind of got on with it, because that was the kind of person that he was,” Sara said.
And he did the same when they returned home to Shepshed, Leicestershire. “He just carried on going,” Sara added.
But his condition worsened, and soon he was visibly unwell.
Sara said: “He was never sick. He’d never had a day off sick in his life.
“But he came home one day on his motorbike and he couldn’t take his boots off; he couldn’t bend over because he was so bloated.
“He actually looked nine months pregnant.
“He wasn’t eating much, he wasn’t drinking at all, he was just not himself.”
I was watching him waste away and it was breaking my heart every day
Sara Atkins
Unable to take seeing him struggling any longer, Sara took Simon to see their GP, who suggested he try some laxatives.
He did, but he kept getting worse so they made visit after visit to the surgery.
“Every time we’d see a different doctor, and they just kept saying, ‘You’re constipated, here’s some laxatives. You’ll be fine in a couple of days,'” Sara said.
“That went on for five weeks.”
Then, at the beginning of December things took a real turn.
“He was lying in the living room and he was really cold,” Sara said.
“He was 6ft5in, built, loads of muscle on him – he was a healthy guy – but he’d just lost so much weight.
“He was in his army sleeping bag and wearing his hat and gloves and I was just like, ‘It’s not even cold.’
“I’m always cold and I was sweating. The heating was on and I was sweating. I was thinking, ‘This ain’t right’.
“I just said, ‘I need to get you to A&E now because this is just ridiculous’. He was just wasting away.”
‘World fell apart’
Sara rushed her husband to Leicester Royal Infirmary, where they discovered his weight had plummeted to about 12st 10lbs.
Doctors then broke the news that he might have cancer and he needed to be kept in.
The next day, the couple’s “world fell apart”.
“I went to see him and he just cried. I’d never seen him cry,” Sara said.
“He just said, ‘I don’t want to leave you and the children’.
“This is not something you plan for, and it just went from bad to worse after that.”
For the next few weeks, they were told he had “cancer of unknown primary” (CUP), meaning the disease had been found in his body but doctors couldn’t find where it had started.
It wasn’t until the end of January that they discovered it had begun in his appendix, which is rare.
It affects about one in every 500,000 people, according to CancerNet.
Symptoms of cancer of the appendix
CANCER that starts in the appendix is rare, affecting around one in every 500,000 people.
It’s most common in people in their 50s, but it can happen at any age.
The main symptoms include:
- Appendicitis
- Bloating
- Stomach pain
- Diarrhoea and/or constipation
- Fluid in the abdomen
- Increased waist size
- Pelvic pain
- Nausea and vomiting
- Infertility
Source: CancerNet and Cleveland Clinic
Simon had fluid drained from his stomach and was in and out of hospital for weeks.
Sara said his whole bowel and stomach were so squashed by the fluid that medics couldn’t even perform a colonoscopy to check his insides.
“By this point he was so weak,” Sara said.
“He couldn’t eat, he was literally not sleeping, and he was vomiting.
“If he tried to eat, he would just throw it back up.
“I was watching him waste away and it was breaking my heart every day.
“He was so hungry but it was like he was starving himself to death.”
In his final weeks, Sara cooked him all of his favourite foods – even though he couldn’t always stomach them.
And for one of their final meals, to celebrate their upcoming 10-year wedding anniversary, she made him a steak dinner.
On January 29, they met with their consultant, who advised that Simon needed surgery to remove his stomach lining.
This would need to be done at another hospital in the UK, followed by chemotherapy.
‘I don’t want to be prodded anymore’
“Simon sat there and asked what the likelihood was that he would survive any of that, and the doctor said the chances were low,” Sara said.
“You only had to look at Simon. He was just skin and bones at this point.
“He said, ‘I don’t want it. I don’t want to be prodded anymore. I don’t want to go through surgery again.’
“Simon asked how long he would have left if he just stayed at home, and the doctor said two weeks to summer if he was lucky.
“And he was so right because he died two weeks later, on February 11.”
The mum-of-two now wants everyone to be aware of the symptoms of cancer of the appendix so no other family has to go through the pain she has.
“He wasn’t even poorly before, there was nothing wrong with him, then we went on holiday and it’s like I’ve been daydreaming,” she said.
“I wake up and realise he’s gone and I’ve lost him.
“I don’t know where Christmas went. I don’t know where New Year went.
“It’s March soon and I just don’t know where the time has gone.
“We had our whole lives ahead of us. We’ll miss him every day.
“There are no words to express how I feel and how unfair it has been for us all.
“Simon, you are our world, our everything.”
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