I've read you can go up to 6 months with some stents in the common bile duct. I think mine was rated for that. It was a semi-metallic model from Boston Scientific. It lasted me until removal during my Whipple procedure 6 months later; thankful for all that!

@collenp , your luck sounds like my family story the past year. You really can't make that kind of story up! My sympathy and best wishes to you in all of it.

As far as symptoms go before the initial diagnosis of PDAC, in the order they developed:
Some unexplained weight loss (hard to separate from my deliberate weight loss at the same time)
Elevated liver enzymes during my annual physical (good timing)
Jaundice becoming visible in whites of my eyes
Increasingly discolored stool and urine
Jaundice becoming visible in my skin tone
Back pain maybe coincidental; couldn't distinguish from separate muscular issue
Increased itching of skin