Kyle Ingram-Baldwin, was devastated when he learned that the stomach discomfort and lethargy troubling him were symptoms of stage four bowel cancer.
Kyle received the ‘heartbreaking news’ on October 25 last year, leaving his family in disbelief as the 40 year old had previously attributed the pain to a possible exercise-related injury, reports the Manchester Evening News.
His partner, Becky Ingram-Baldwin, revealed that despite numerous health complaints over the years, Kyle had struggled to get to the bottom of the problem.
She told the Liverpool Echo : “He’d been going backwards and forwards with doctors over the years. He just started getting a pain in his stomach and in his shoulder. He thought it could be a workout injury.
“The doctor said it was IBS but I thought it sounded like gallstones. I told him to go to hospital, because if it was gallstones, they could sort it out there.”
Although stomach pains and fatigue are recognised by the NHS as potential indicators of bowel cancer, Becky noted that Kyle’s condition was frequently mistaken for other maladies.
After an agonising period of uncertainty, everything came to light last October. Becky recollected: “He kept saying, I’ll be home soon. Then the time just kept ticking away.
“Then he turned up and just told us that it was stage four bowel cancer. We said, ‘what?’ It obviously floored us because he was so healthy, he didn’t look ill and he didn’t have any of the symptoms.
“He didn’t drink, he didn’t smoke, he didn’t do drugs, he ate healthily, he worked out, so it was such a shock. When someone is at stage four, you imagine them being a lot more ill.
“He had a few stomach aches and it wasn’t a consistent stomach ache either. Certain foods would make it worse. He was tired, but we have four children and you expect to be tired.
“Tiredness obviously is one of the signs, but we didn’t think anything of it. It is just absolutely heartbreaking. It’s scary how he went downhill so quickly.”
On June 8, Kyle launched a GoFundMe page to raise funds for private treatment, but his condition deteriorated rapidly, and he passed away just eight days later.
Kyle, from Ramsgate in Thanet, was a regular visitor to the North West because of his love of Liverpool FC – something he would ‘talk about with anyone and everyone’.
And the club’s supporters have been among those supporting the family in recent days, with a sea of tributes online and a string of contributions to the GoFundMe page, with more than £9,000 raised so far.
Becky said: “He was the most amazing man I’ve ever met. He was funny. He was really thoughtful and caring. He’d do anything for anyone.
“Since he’s died so many people have reached out to me and said what an impact he’s had on their lives. I knew he was incredible, but it’s another level.
“It’s really great hearing how incredible other people thought he was because I knew it. He was an amazing dad too. Being a dad was a really important thing to him.”
She added: “It’s such a loss. He was my everything. He was my soulmate. We’ve been together a long time.
“I don’t think we’ll ever get over this, ever, because it was so quick. He contracted sepsis at the end and died of multi-organ failure, which stemmed from the cancer.”