Tributes to Peterborough grandfather who underwent world first operation

Ray Page (74), from Orton Goldhay, had the operation to remove a lung through a small cut of just 5cm on November 1 last year at the Royal Papworth Hospital.

He had stage 3 cancer at the time, and the treatment gave him a new chance at life.

MORE: Retired Peterborough milkman in world first operation to remove lung through 5cm cut

Had he not had the operation, his family feared he would not have survived until Christmas last year.

Sadly Ray - who had three children and eight grandchildren - died earlier this week after being diagnosed with a brain tumour.

Grandson Ben Hawkins paid tribute to Ray. He said: “My grandad was a fantastic man he was always one to joke.

“He spent his retirement at the Digby caravan park in Hunstanton with his wife Jo page who was married to him for 50 years.

“He spent 28 years working for milk and more getting up at 2am delivering milk to people’s doors at early hours in time for breakfast.

“He was also one of those people who always had a sense of humour and loved his regular elderly customers at Milk and More.”

During the three-hour operation at Papworth, world leading surgical teams made an incision between the abdominal muscles, removing the entire lung through the small cut of approximately 5 centimetres.

Meanwhile, the anaesthetic team controlled the pain through a non-intubated method, meaning the operation was tubeless and the patient kept spontaneously breathing on a gaseous mixture of oxygen, air and sevoflurane, free of opioids.

Performing thoracic operations in this way reduces the risk of respiratory complications and improves patient recovery time compared to surgical procedures that involve opening up the patient’s chest under general anaesthetic.

Following the operation, Ray was in hospital for a week, before being allowed home.

Earlier this year, while speaking to The Peterborough Telegraph, he said; “I can do almost everything I could before.

I can’t carry heavy shopping, or do the hoovering,but I can do pretty much everything else.

“I get a bit out of breath sometimes, but other than that, I am fighting fit.

“I had the occasional bit of pain when coughing for the first day but that’s it really – I could walk and move about fine even just a couple of days afterwards which I really was not expecting.”

Ryan said Ray had been incredibly grateful to the team at Papworth, as well as the nurses at Peterborough City Hospital. He said; “ He was so incredibly appreciative of all of the Nurses on the oncology ward at Peterborough hospital as they held his hand in his last moments.

“He was so thankful to Giuseppe (Aresu, consultant surgeon) and the team of surgeons at Papworth Hospital. They gave him hope and they beat one cancer with his world’s first operation but sadly the cancer appeared somewhere else and beat him.

“If the team at Papworth didn’t do the operation they did he wouldn’t have lasted the last 6 months we had with him.”