Pancreatic cancer: Jaundice was the sign I had ‘silent killer’

Stuart O’Neill, a father of two, was ‘lucky’ at 43 when the yellowing of his eyes alerted him to pancreatic cancer, a disease that rarely has symptoms

Stuart O'Neill, who has been treated for pancreatic cancer with a Whipple surgery and chemotherapy. Photogaph Moya Nolan

PANCREATIC cancer affects almost 600 people in Ireland each year. It is slightly more common in men, and the average age of diagnosis is 73. However, Dublin-based businessman Stuart O’Neill was 43 when he was diagnosed in early 2024.

“In December 2023, I was feeling a bit tired and had noticed some changes in the colour of my stools, but I was super busy at work and I had just had covid, so I put it down to that. Christmas came and went, and, in January, I noticed my urine looked very dark yellow. At first, I thought it might be the lighting in the bathroom, but then I noticed that the whites of my eyes were looking yellow, and I thought, ‘Oh, no, this isn’t right.’ ”