Pancreatic Cancer Group: Introduce yourself and connect with others

We followed the advise for questions and just finished doing CT angiogram as well as PET and MRI scans yesterday. Met with the surgeon and the scans came back in our meeting. We went from talking about resection and laparoscopy to see if cancer was in abdominal wall to doing a liver biopsy as cancer had already metastasized to several places in my liver. I am not a candidate for resection now, but the hope is that I am one of the 5% that has the gene that responds to chemo.
As mentioned by one of you, yesterday was a tough day. I want to fight but last night was stuck in the “what does the world look like without me in it?”.

My wife will eventually be a widow. I may not ever see grandchildren. In my small , rural school they won’t be able to replace me as teachers are in such short supply.

It is defeatist, I know, and I won’t sit with these thoughts long, but I have to work through all the feelings that go with this diagnosis.
I’m assuming I have to grieve the life I thought I would have as I transition to the life I will have.

Biopsy tomorrow and hopefully getting a port next week.

I have never cried as much as I did yesterday afternoon…with my wife, with my family as we called all of our immediate family.

Your stories help as I am rereading the fact that some of you are much further in life than the statistics would show. Even the doc said each of us is very unique and wouldn’t give me a “how long I have” estimate. She only said without treatment would be 6 months.

I’m sitting here in bed at 4 am and I can’t sleep anymore. Time is the most importantly thing I have left. I want to spend it fighting this and being with my family as much as I can.

Sorry for the ramble.

@stageivsurvivor Every time some doctor tells us no point in a particular treatment because in his/her opinion, it looks like it has metastasised (every shadow on a scan is a lesion!) and really the treatment will not do much, I look up all your posts - about being our own advocate and to keep fighting.

Thank you. Your reply gives me hope. I shall continue to read and research.

I had Whipple when I was 85 now 87 doing well. It's not your age but your physical condition. Had my surgery at MSK in NYC with the best, Dr . Drebin . Do more research and go to a large cancer center hospital. Let me know if you need more help. Be strong and stay on top of this problem.

Hi @valerina30, what a scary time for you. Did you check out the MD Anderson program at Cooper Health in Camden?
https://www.cooperhealth.org/services/md-anderson-cancer-center-cooper

Same for me. Luckily, PNET was found by chance . I was referred to a fantastic surgeon. Had the horrible Whipple in 2019. Stay calm and do your due diligence .

Those are incredible statistics! My question would be how did this patients fare after the surgery?

Thank you for your words of hope and encouragement.

Here is the website got product manufacturer - https://shuddhi.com/, and clinics - https://clinics.shuddhi.com/

This, in my opinion, is not applicable to front line pancreatic cancer care.

Speaking of Whipple and age, a surgeon will tell you it is not age that is the deciding factor but the physical assessment of the patient. The oldest patient to have the Whipple done was 103 and it was done at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore by the noted Whipple surgeon John Cameron MD now retired. I know of another patient that was in their early 90’s operated on by surgeon Flavio Rocca in Portland, Oregon and again the decision was taken to perform the Whipple based on the physical condition of the patient-not the age. Both of these accounts were by personal communication with the surgeons mentioned.