Hello @natalex, welcome to Connect. You may notice I moved and combined your discussion post with an existing one titled, "Can someone help...terrified: Need info on pancreatic cancer." I did this because your post had so much in common with this existing discussion where members like @cindee60 and @marvinjsturing discussed their fears with pancreatic cancer and being diagnosed as well. @natalex, you mentioned that your mother's providers have said she is not a surgery candidate. Have they discussed any sort of treatment with you or your mother?

I was diagnosed w stage 4 pancreatic CA January 2nd this year. Because of small liver metastasis I am not a surgical candidate either. Have had chemo all year and the primary tumor is shrinking. Make sure your mother is getting CREON. Because the pancreas may not be able to secrete its digestive enzymes, diet becomes critical and there is not a lot of information about this. Most diet information is just directed at cancer, not cancer of the digestive system. Nausea and diarrhea from chemo make it hard to stick to a "healthy" diet consistently. My first few months were scary and unsettling, but as the tumor shrinks, I feel much better and can exercise more and eat better. My oncology team at Mayo is extraordinary and positive, while not sugar coating anything. They understand there is a balance between quality of life and quantity of life. If I can survive even another five years by doing chemo every 3 weeks I feel very fortunate indeed. Cancer is a learning experience for me. I've learned a little bit how to be okay with big unknowns. - even how I will feel from day to day. I've learned how deeply I am loved, and continually amazed by the level of supportiveness of friends and family. I would recommend Kelly Turner's book Radical Remissions. It is full of stories of people who reversed "incurable" cancers and lists the main things they did to achieve this.