Rotorua Daily Post
  • Rotorua Daily Post home
  • Latest news
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
  • Sport
  • Video
  • Death notices
  • Classifieds

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • On The Up
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Residential property listings
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
  • Rural
  • Sport

Locations

  • Tauranga
  • Te Puke
  • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Tokoroa
  • Taupō & Tūrangi

Media

  • Video
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-Editions
  • Photo sales

Weather

  • Rotorua
  • Tauranga
  • Whakatāne
  • Tokoroa
  • Taupō

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Rotorua Daily Post

Pancreatic cancer: Tauranga man loses parents and brother, running marathon to raise money

Megan Wilson
By Megan Wilson
Multimedia Journalist·Bay of Plenty Times·
3 Dec, 2021 06:00 PM6 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

    Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

Andy Kirk will be running the Auckland marathon in January to raise money for the Gut Cancer Foundation. Photo / George Novak

Andy Kirk will be running the Auckland marathon in January to raise money for the Gut Cancer Foundation. Photo / George Novak

Six years, three deaths and a trio of funerals on the other side of the world. When Andy Kirk lost his mother, father and brother to pancreatic cancer he was left ''shocked''.

The 49-year-old remembers flying home to Britain to bury his loved ones and the toll the deadly disease took on his family.

Sitting at his kitchen table, in a white T-shirt with a picture of his eldest brother Rob on his sleeve, he hopes to raise awareness and money to help others.

Last year he ran the Auckland Marathon in memory of Rob and his parents. That effort raised funds for the Gut Cancer Foundation and in January Andy will hit the streets again. This time around he will pay tribute to his mum June.

Andy says pancreatic cancer could run genetically and the risk of getting it increases with age.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

He has regular MRI scans for "peace of mind" and keeps fit and healthy by running.

Andy Kirk lost his parents June and Geoff, and his brother Rob to pancreatic cancer. Photo / George Novak
Andy Kirk lost his parents June and Geoff, and his brother Rob to pancreatic cancer. Photo / George Novak

"Hopefully I'm doing all I can to prevent it so I can't really do anything else. Normally by the [time] you catch it, it is too late.

"The earlier you can catch it, the more chance you have of surviving."

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Andy prefers to stay positive and upbeat.

"If I worried about it, well life's not worth living."

His mother June was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2012, his father Geoff in 2017 and his oldest brother Rob in 2018.

All died about four months after being diagnosed.

Andy Kirk pictured with his mum June. Photo / Supplied
Andy Kirk pictured with his mum June. Photo / Supplied

"There wasn't even a chance of surgery for my mum ... and she couldn't eat.''

His father had stomach pains which "alerted" him that something was wrong. He went to the doctor but because he ''looked a bit yellow'' he was advised to go to the hospital.

"He didn't even know he had cancer".

Andy said Rob's diagnosis hit him hard. I was ''shocked" because he was "quite young" and I thought he could have had surgery.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

But then he was told the cancer had "wrapped itself around a major artery" and it was too dangerous to get rid of it.

June was 69 when she died, Geoff was 75, and Rob was 51.

Gut Cancer Foundation executive officer Liam Willis. Photo / Supplied
Gut Cancer Foundation executive officer Liam Willis. Photo / Supplied

Gut Cancer Foundation executive officer Liam Willis said the only cure for pancreatic cancer was surgery and about 85 per cent of pancreas cancer patients were diagnosed too late.

"It's so important that we find new ways of extending life for this group of patients and give a better quality of life because cancer research and cancer treatment is not just about cure - it's about giving people a longer and better life as well."

A new clinical trial called ASCEND would start next year and run for 24 months. The trial was for patients who had been diagnosed too late for surgery, in the hope of extending their lives and giving them "a better quality of life".

The trial involved the CEND-1 drug which would try to "help chemotherapy penetrate the cancer tumour".

"That's what we're trying to work out with this trial - will this drug help us penetrate the cancer tumour and get the chemo working better than it is currently?"

A grant of $81,000 from the foundation would go towards the trial, which had come from donations raised by the community and "generous New Zealanders".

The trial had been initiated by a group based out of Australia, which had calculated costs per patient based on treatment in Australia, he said.

"When you transfer that over to New Zealand, there's a deficit."

This was because New Zealand hospitals did not invest as much in clinical trials compared to Australia, he said.

Willis said there was a shortfall of about $4000 per patient that hospitals needed to give New Zealanders access to the trial.

Clinicians who were interested in the trial put forward a proposal to the foundation, and the foundation used fundraiser money to meet that $4000 gap.

Willis said pancreatic cancer had the "worst outcomes" out of all cancers, with the "worst five-year survival rate".

This meant that only 12 per cent of those diagnosed with pancreatic cancer were expected to live beyond five years.

"The only way we improve that is through funding research and trials."

Medical oncologist, senior lecturer at Otago University and Gut Cancer Foundation scientific advisory committee member Dr Sharon Pattison. Photo / Supplied
Medical oncologist, senior lecturer at Otago University and Gut Cancer Foundation scientific advisory committee member Dr Sharon Pattison. Photo / Supplied

Medical oncologist, senior lecturer at Otago University and Gut Cancer Foundation scientific advisory committee member Dr Sharon Pattison says pancreatic cancer is "not so responsive" to chemotherapy.

"Unfortunately because of where the pancreas is, quite often it doesn't really have very many symptoms until its spread or advanced to the stage where surgery's not possible.

"So most people present when they can't be cured.

"What the ASCEND trial is looking at is a medicine called CEND-1 that is hopefully going to be able to allow the chemotherapy to get in a little bit better ... and therefore hopefully get a better response."

She is "really quite excited" about the trial because New Zealand did not have the same treatment options as other countries had for pancreatic cancer.

Pattison says symptoms could be "quite vague" such as jaundice, loss of appetite, unexplained weight loss and "a little bit of abdominal pain".

She says if the cancer was found early enough, it could be cured "in a small number of cases".

Andy Kirk pictured with his dad Geoff. Photo / Supplied
Andy Kirk pictured with his dad Geoff. Photo / Supplied

Andy's parents visited him in New Zealand before they died.

"They made it across once in 2010 because when I first said I was going for a second time, they're like 'why?'"

"And then they came across and my mum did say to me, 'yeah I can see why'.

"My mum was hoping if she did get better, they were going to come across for a second time, but unfortunately it never happened."

Andy described his parents and brother as "fun-loving" and says sharing his story was "part of the curing process".

Andy Kirk wore a T-shirt with a picture of his eldest brother Rob on the sleeves. Photo / Supplied
Andy Kirk wore a T-shirt with a picture of his eldest brother Rob on the sleeves. Photo / Supplied


* Andy is trying to fundraise $1000 for the Gut Cancer Foundation by running the Auckland Marathon in January. Donations can be made here.

Save

    Share this article

    Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

Latest from Rotorua Daily Post

Rotorua Daily Post

Private ambulance operators accused of doctoring records to obtain morphine and fentanyl

09 Jun 07:00 AM
Rotorua Daily Post

Rotorua CBD crash: Woman charged with wounding with intent

09 Jun 06:09 AM
Rotorua Daily Post

'The man cannot be trusted': Former rogue cop John Dewar jailed for company theft

09 Jun 06:00 AM

Why Cambridge is the new home of future-focused design

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Rotorua Daily Post

Private ambulance operators accused of doctoring records to obtain morphine and fentanyl

Private ambulance operators accused of doctoring records to obtain morphine and fentanyl

09 Jun 07:00 AM

The couple claimed to treat a man who had been dead for three years.

Rotorua CBD crash: Woman charged with wounding with intent

Rotorua CBD crash: Woman charged with wounding with intent

09 Jun 06:09 AM
'The man cannot be trusted': Former rogue cop John Dewar jailed for company theft

'The man cannot be trusted': Former rogue cop John Dewar jailed for company theft

09 Jun 06:00 AM
Over 1200 exhibitions to open at Fieldays 2025

Over 1200 exhibitions to open at Fieldays 2025

09 Jun 05:03 AM
Clean water fuelling Pacific futures
sponsored

Clean water fuelling Pacific futures

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • Rotorua Daily Post e-edition
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Subscribe to the Rotorua Daily Post
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • What the Actual
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven CarGuide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP