A YORK woman living with cancer said she was overwhelmed by the response to a fundraiser she hosted in the city.

Sheila Cooper, 72, from Huntington, has pancreatic cancer and is a supporter of the charity Pancreatic Cancer UK.

But she said she couldn't have hoped for the level of support from her neighbours, friends and family to a fundraiser on her behalf by Viv and Paul Nicholson at Huntington Working Mens Club.

The event sold out and raised almost £5000 for the charity.

Sheila said: "When they first decided to do it we said if we get £2000 we would be thrilled.

"People were so kind - they were brilliant ."

Among the 250 partygoers were all of Sheila's family including her grandchildren and nurse Eden Galang, an upper gastro-intestinal (GI) clinical nurse specialist at York Hospital.

Sheila was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer after she began to suffer from a persistent pain below her ribs. She instinctively knew it was more than gallstones.

“I knew there was something wrong,” she said, “I said to my daughter-in-law, there’s definitely something going on in there.”

Her hospital referral became immediate when she began to suffer from other symptoms: an upset stomach, jaundice and terrible itching.

Sheila’s cancer is terminal but she’s determined to live with positivity and has been supporting a campaign led by the team at York Hospital to raise awareness of the disease which is the eleventh most common cancer in the UK but has one of the worst survival rates: less than one per cent of people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer survive ten years or more.

There are 27 pancreatic patients currently having chemotherapy in York Hospital.

The key symptoms of pancreatic cancer are:

- A nagging upper abdominal pain, radiating into the back, which may be worse at night.

- Unexpected weight loss and a suppressed appetite

- Loose stools

- New onset diabetes

- Unexplained jaundice