Stories

In October 2005, I received one of the largest shocks of my life. I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer! The pancreas is an organ I had heard of, but I had no clue of its location or its function, much less that it can harbor cancer. Now, here I am – a three-plus year survivor of the Whipple surgery!

My personal doctor had the misfortune of losing her mother to pancreatic cancer within a year after her diagnosis. Had there been as much research over the past 30 years as breast cancer, there might have been an early detection method that would have saved her life, as well as thousands of lives since that time. When I went to see her because my urine had turned brown, she saw that I was jaundiced. She put me in the hospital immediately and I had a stent placed in my bile duct.

On Mother’s Day, May 14, 2006, I told my two sons and daughter that I was going to have surgery. They told me that whatever I did about it, they were with me. My daughter was having massive doses of chemotherapy for colon cancer. Her question to me was, “Mom, why do we have to do this at the same time?” She passed away suddenly on her birthday, May 23rd. I told my surgeon I did not want chemotherapy or radiation because my sons, husband and son-in-law needed an upbeat mom and wife.

When we asked my first surgeon how long I would have, I was told three months. After that conversation, I decided to get a second opinion.

My palliative doctor found a different and very capable surgeon at a local hospital. From the time of my diagnosis in 2005 until my surgery on July 7, 2006, I had four stents put into my bile duct. The day I met my palliative doctor, she understood my uncertainty. Her grandmother was a seven year survivor of pancreatic cancer; she’s now a ten year survivor. She called her grandmother, who lives in Colorado, and her grandmother called me the next day. I now call her my mentor and a wonderful friend. Had I not had such wonderful, caring doctors, friends and family, I probably would not be here now. To all of those people along the way, l give thanks to them for my life.