Hello everyone.

I was diagnosed on December 28, 2020, while in Florida visiting family for the holidays. I had been having discomfort since September/October and assumed it was indigestion. It was persistent, so I thought it might be an ulcer and went online to look up my symptoms. They lined up with gallstones, which made sense to me since both my parents had gallbladders removed. The GI I saw thought that was the case as well, and ordered several tests to confirm. Delays due to the holiday schedule bumped the CT scan I was supposed to have back to January, so I drove down with husband and kids to spend the holidays, with the idea that if things got worse I could go to the ER. That's where I ended up, not realizing I was jaundiced (I'm slightly olive complected) but itching like crazy. A CT showed the mass on my pancreas, later confirmed to be adenocarcinoma head mass. (It was ruled locally advanced, borderline resectable, and has shown no evidence of spread).

I consulted with both Mayo in Jacksonville and a local cancer center nearer to me. Since it seemed they were basically to follow the same course of treatment, I opted for closer to home. I had a very good response to the folfirinox regimen as well as the radiation, with my CA 19-9 dropping to 9 at one point (as of last blood test in August it was 11-13).

But, the bad news came when the tumor board declined to do the Whipple. They decided not to do anything further and monitor me. So back to Mayo I wentfor a second opinion, where last week I received the news that the Whipple WAS a very viable option. The MRI done at the (Jacksonville) clinic showed that there was no involvement of the artery as my previous surgeon had said. The surgeon at Mayo, Dr. Stauffer, said he would have no hesitation performing this surgery on a patient of my age (54).

I'm scheduled for surgery on November 10. Very nervous. I've never had any kind of internal surgery and other than the tumor am quite healthy, so I've been told the surgery should be relatively uncomplicated. Not sure what to expect pain-wise, although I have a pretty good pain tolerance and my immune system seems to be very strong.