I'm so sorry you're going through this. I know what a shock this is. My husband was in a similar situation - 58 years old, healthy, fit, non smoker etc. His mass was found by CT scan at our local hospital and we met with a local surgeon who explained what a distal pancreatectomy was. He acknowledged that we would most likely get a second opinion, which we did. We're in close proximity to UPENN and MSK but we went to MSK. We mentioned that my husband was on a wait-list for an endoscopic ultrasound for more info. The surgeon explained that there was something there that didn't belong there, it was most likely PDAC and she wanted to get it out immediately. She told us that we needed to move very quickly so between the date of finding out there was something there to having surgery, the timeframe was only one month. She didn't want to do chemo beforehand, she wanted to get it out and then do chemo after. That worked well for him. We have a friend who did chemo first, and her recovery was difficult because she was so weakened by chemo then even more so by the surgery. We've learned so much from this site and from all of the people here who have shared their experiences. My husband's recovery from surgery went well and he completed his 6 months of Folfirinox in February. He's now in the monitoring phase with scans every 4 months. I wish you all the best.