Pancreatic Cancer Group: Introduce yourself and connect with others

@casey1959 Nope, not wrong at all to be angry.

@tomrennie I have accepted it mostly. Yet is it wrong of me to also be angry? I was then realized Pancreatic Cancer is very hard at times to diagnose.

@casey1959 I suggest don't look back at things like the diagnosis took too long. You can't undo what is done. For me, it was unhealthy. I have learned to live today and just move forward. You can change things moving forward. Moving forward has hope.

@jerryc131 My husband was diagnosed in July 2024. He never did Chemo or received any Treatment. Unfortunately , he had a lot of setbacks with the Surgery but he had been a Diabetic since he was 40 and never took it seriously enough. He had Kidney Cancer 4 years before this Diagnosis and lost a Kidney. He was finally recovering from all of that when he had to have a
double Heart bypass. It took him a long while to get over that Surgery when he all of a sudden started to lose weight which then took us on the path of all of the testing before finally getting
this Diagnosis. I have to say he had a hard 6 months after the surgery but after that we had a good year of being able to go out to dinner with Friends and just really enjoy our Family. He was able to eat anything he wanted and had a good quality of Life.
Just in the last 6 weeks, things changed and he has been on a steady decline since. He has
almost stopped eating completely and lost 17 lbs in the last 3 weeks. Sleeping so much more
and has just lost interest in going out or seeing friends. He definitely perks up whenever our
sons are around.
We went to see the Oncologist yesterday and they have referred him to Hospice Care. They will be here on Monday so I am anxious to be able to get a little more support for both of us.
We have been together since we were 17 years old and Seniors in High School. We will be married 51 years this July.
We have had a good life with a lot of Ups and Downs but thankfully we can laugh about the downs which mostly happened in the first several years of Marriage. I can say that this part of the Journey together is the hardest.

@suelannon
Damn, woman! That’s awful!! How are you two managing? Is he doing chemo? My husband is having his surgery at UVA. It’s supposed to be pretty good.
I’ll be praying for you two.
🤗

@suelannon I felt my husband's diagnosis took so long. 9 months. Failed biopsy after biopsy. It's so difficult to watch this illness do what it does to our loved ones. At times I'm just speechless. I feel for you both.

@tomrennie we never forget these little things. Makes the tough big things a bit easier to get through. We've had many nurses these last 5days here in the Critical care Step Down unit. Something about that certain nurse one gets care from that just makes things breathable. Can't explain it. Good night everyone. Rest easy.

Thanks for reaching out. How is your husband now? How long has it been?
What you went through at the hospital is what I am expecting. We will be 2 hrs from home, so I will be staying over as well. People said thud come stay with
Me, but I’ll be bedside most of the time, I'm sure. I’ll probably be teaching out to this community a lot then.
I hope you both are doing better.
Jerry

@jerryc131
I kept our life at home as normal and calm as possible. I was seeing a counselor already, as the cancer diagnosis was sudden and without symptoms (found it on a CT for an unrelated issue), and I needed help with coping to better support him. We were blindsided by the initial diagnosis. While he was in the hospital, I was there all of the first day. I took walks periodically, found the hospital coffee shop and cafeteria for my meals and breaks. I took my Kindle to read when my husband was napping, etc. We were not at home when he had the surgery, so I had a place to stay nearby so I could get good sleep and have a private place to unwind after each day at the hospital.

@jerryc131 My husband had lost a ton of weight and not much of any appetite. We went through 6 months of testing and " Let's wait and see" only to be finally told by the Oncologist that she did not think this was Cancer. We switched hospitals ( Both of these are well known
Hospitals in Phila. ) and went to see a Doctor that specializes in Pancreatic Surgery. He did a Distal Pancreatectomy on my Husband. Tumor was in both body and tail of the Pancreas and in 14 of the 20 Lymph Nodes they removed. There were also masses in his lungs but they could not biopsy for 6 Months because he was too weak from the Surgery. Biopsy finally was done and confirmed for Pancreatic Cancer in the Lungs. He was already Stage 4 .