09/05/2026
The day I was diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer…
This is hard for me to write, the impact of what I’m about to explain is going to touch people in a way that I wish it didn’t.
As many of you may already know that the last few years of my life have been a bit of a challenge.
It kind of all started with the story of how a work colleague that became a close friend urged me to go see a doctor after complaining of constantly not feeling well. The urgency and the sense of seriousness was overwhelming as I’d never seen him behave like this as he had a lot of respect for me, I listened and booked a doctors appointment. From there bloods were taken and to cut a long story short I was diagnosed with Bowel cancer November 2023.
This was something I’d never dreamt would ever happen to me. I was lucky enough to have an operation and they removed the cancer in my bowel.
Part of the follow up programme is a number of subsequent visits over a number of years to keep the bowel cancer in check, those test results were clear of that cancer in November 2025.
I thought all was well, after that surgery I was feeling so much better, like a new man, like the bloke I knew I was full of vigour and an enthusiasm for life. Things were good, tracking well.
This is where it’s kind of strange with how everything else transpired.
It was Easter 2025, myself and the family had finally made some time to go away on a short holiday to enjoy a bit of R&R, life was good.
Unfortunately whilst we were away and having a fab time, I ended up cutting our holiday short with an unexpected incident that ended up with me coming off my dirt bike and basically tearing all the ligaments in my left knee.
All I can say is that the pain and the discomfort I experienced at the time of the accident and then the reality of a full on knee reconstruction surgery on the 2nd of May 2025 lasting 8hrs was enough to put anyone under an enormous amount of stress.
The recovery process for this type of injury is a long term program requiring a certain amount of heavy pain medication. They had me on 150mg of Tapentadol (an opioid) every 4hrs, this killed the pain and masked all of of other residual pain that I thought was caused from the overall lack of use or even over use of my left hand side due to the inactivity during the first few months of my initial recovery.
Several months had passed, I thought I was feeling somewhat better. I was starting to go back to working, I was even going to the gym on an approved recovery program through an exercise physiologist.
This is where it got tricky, whilst at the gym I accidentally hit my left knee with a piece of equipment and that caused me pain, it felt that bad I had to revisit my orthopaedic surgeon to explain my situation.
Cortisone injection and an MRI showed that I had torn the rest of the ligaments in my knee plus damaging the cartilage in my knee. The original surgery was still intact.
Second knee surgery scheduled in for 27th February 2026, not as full on as the first but it was another 2 hrs in surgery again under full anaesthetic.
This time the knee actually felt good. The pain was not so bad and felt like I could slowly ween myself off the pain meds and start to enjoy the feeling of a fully reattached and operable knee.
I started feeling strange, I thought maybe I was having withdrawal symptoms but I knew I had done the process properly and could tell because my knee didn’t hurt BUT there was something wrong, a deep deep dark ache that started rearing its ugly head, I pain I thought tbh at it worst was like having a heart attack.
I was scared and unsure of what to do. I put up with this pain for a few days, when it came to a head and I couldn’t stand it any longer and I had to call 000 for an ambulance at 2am on the Wednesday 29th April 2026.
I was sweating aching, shooting pains. All the signs. The paramedics checked my heart on the spot and the initial ECG was clear but they didn’t like the way I looked. Pale grey and pasty.
They took my bloods and admitted me into Joondalup hospital ED.
The wait was the usual public system times, I persisted and waited. After several hours they admitted me in for further observation.
This is where my second angel appeared.
I was lucky enough to have one of the ED triage nurses, his name was Luke, he took an extra interest in my case as my conditions were presenting “a typical” for a heart condition but the tests showed it wasn’t.
He calmed me down, we chatted a bit more about the events over the last few years, told him about my bowl cancer, that’s when I saw something click inside him. He turned to me and said, I’m not happy with what I’m seeing with these initial tests, I am going to do a different set of bloods and have you sent for a full body CT scan.
Within 24hrs the results had come back, blood work didn’t look good, CT scan didn’t look good. Elevated levels in my pancreatic bloods. Masses spotted on my pancreas, stomach lining and a few spots on my lungs.
The prognosis unfortunately wasn’t looking good.
I was admitted into the SSU at Joondalup hospital and have been here since the 29/04/2025.
More bloods and a scheduled PET scan were done with the initial prognosis confirmed and now awaiting an appointment with my oncologist on Tuesday 12th May 2026 to work out the best plan of attack for some targeted treatment.
No surgery, no coming back from this, we are now working on an acute pain management program to help me with quality of life.
I’m not overly scared anymore, always had my peace with the idea of dying.
No one, and I truly believe no one would ever expect to have something like this happen to them. But that’s life sometimes, the best thing anyone can do is listen to their body. Don’t hide those deep dark pains, don’t think that no one will believe you.
If you are not feeling right then go do something about it, it could save your life.
The residual spill out from all of this is probably where my biggest concerns lie. My wife, my kids, their future.
Them watching me slowly die.
I can rest assured that they will not be left alone without any support, financially or emotionally.
I want to thank all the people that have touched my life over the last 50 odd years. I wouldn’t change a thing in the world about how my life has turned out, ups and downs, family issues, financial issues, and the overall stress of trying to make a successful life to support the future of my children.
I will do my best to stay positive and enjoy the time I have left with my loved ones.
Love to all,
Skordy.
4WD Off-Road Passion
Skordy Offroad 
WA Prado 4x4
Steve Skordos
Cancer Council Australia
World Pancreatic Cancer Day
Joondalup Health Campus Public & Private
