25
results found
Survivor
Survivor Story: Jean Settle
I am writing my story with the wish that it may give others HOPE, something I wasn't given. I am a nurse who retired early and became a full time gardener. My husband, a cardiologist, and I have four acres and live on a beautiful lake that we irrigate from. We have over three hundred rose bushes, hundreds of azaleas, camellias, Japanese maples, and thousands of different kinds of flowers. Gardening is our passion besides sailing and enjoying wine. It all started eighteen months before the diagnosis with bowel changes which I attributed...
Survivor Story: Jay Enoch
My pancreatic cancer was found purely by chance! My father died of an aortic aneurism in his 70s. The abdominal aorta is that portion of the aorta generally affected in that disorder. When I reached the age at which my dad died, I asked my internist whether I should be examined for a possible aortic aneurism. She agreed and arranged a CT scan for me. At the hospital, the capable young radiologist informed me that my aorta was fine, but that my pancreas looked rather strange. I had no symptoms of pancreatic disease. A second CT scan confirmed the anomaly. I then...
Survivor Story: Barbie Zolla
My little energizer bunny -- that's my mom. She keeps going, and going, and always beats to the rhythm of her own drum. She's always been that way. When I was little, while at work as a children's social worker, she drove her car over an embankment, crashed into someone's garage, walked away without the slightest scar and then proceeded to interview her client. Years later, she got held up in front of our rabbi's house on her birthday and was told not to scream. After she screamed at the top of her lungs, the two trouble makers ran away and she walked into the...
Volunteer
Volunteer Story: Kristen Angell
This is not about me. It’s about my daughter Kristen, and, my husband, her dad, Ken. In January 2006 I was diagnosed with breast cancer. During my treatment, Kristen felt the need to "do something constructive" so she joined the American Cancer Society’s Relay For Life. In 2007, as I celebrated my 1 year survivorship, my husband Ken was diagnosed with Stage IV pancreatic cancer. This made Kristen's resolve even stronger to fight cancer! During the course of 3 years, Kristen was responsible for raising $35,000 for the American Cancer Society’s Relay For...
Volunteer Story: Dawn Lowery
Pancreatic cancer entered my life when my brother, Ryan Graham, was diagnosed 2 1/2 years ago at age 32. I never knew how serious pancreatic cancer was until that day. Thankfully, he was able to have the Whipple procedure in February 2007.. He then went through very aggressive treatments of chemo and radiation. Also during this time he was going through a divorce. He pushed through it all and remained a fighter. Planning my own wedding for that September my hope was that my brother would be well enough to attend my...
Volunteer Story: Brittany Black
Clyde Monday, my grandfather and a father figure to me, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer on August 17, 2005: He died just 20 days later. In addition to being my best friend, he was my role model and the perfect family man. He died just 11 days before I turned 23.At the time of his diagnosis, he had stage IV pancreatic cancer. Like us, you may wonder why he was diagnosed at such a late stage of the disease. The reason is because there is no early detection method for pancreatic cancer. He had no chance of fighting this horrible disease because...
Volunteer Story: Maria Fisher
Deadly pancreatic cancer took the life of my beloved and beautiful 27-year-old daughter, Bridget, on January 9. 2007. Since then, my life and the lives of everyone who loved her have never been the same.She lived only eight months after she was diagnosed at stage IV with a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor. Sadly, she had to endure much pain and suffering before she passed.No early diagnostic tools are available yet for pancreatic cancer, the fourth leading cause of cancer deaths. Still, pancreatic cancer remains the least funded of all...
Volunteer Story: Jessica Cravero
My husband, Dr. John Cravero, lost his mother to pancreatic cancer in November 1999. When we first met in the summer of 2007, I could see the impact that the loss of his mom still had on him even 8 years after her passing, so I wanted to learn more about the disease so that I could have a better understanding of what his family had gone though. As we were getting to know each other, we talked a lot about his mom and what they had all experienced following her diagnosis and journey through the disease. When I later Googled pancreatic cancer to learn...
Volunteer Story: Greg Petrosewicz
My mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in January of 2001. Doctors found it after they performed exploratory surgery because of excruciating lower back pain she was experiencing. The cancer was too widespread to operate. My father called me with choked-back tears and said that Mom had cancer. My oldest brother researched pancreatic cancer on the web and called me the following week. "It doesn't look good," he said. I will NEVER forget when he said that. In July of that year, I lost my mother and my closest confidante. I talked to...
Advocate
Advocate, Volunteer and Survivor Story: Ralph Cheney
A local doctor told me I had an "undiagnosed obstruction" in the tail of my pancreas after two bouts of pancreatitis in the fall of 2004. Local doctors wanted to wait and re scan me in six months. My wife Mariann said, "No way." We went to a major center in New York with expertise in pancreas cancer. There a gastroenterologist known for his skill in performing Endoscopic Ultrasounds told us that he felt that it was a tumor and it could be malignant. He could not reach the tumor- but he had a hunch by looking at it that it was cancer. I had a distal pancreatectomy...
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