Pancreatic Cancer Group: Introduce yourself and connect with others

Hi. My husband was diagnosed with stage4 pancreatic cancer 1 month ago. He will start chemo next week. He had (scale of 1-10). 10 of pain this morning in stomach. I Just want to know the journey I am expecting. thank you.

@shema Did the medical facility that diagnosed his cancer not give him some opiates or some kind of pain meds. to take home with him?

@shema It will be a very tough Journey for both you and your Husband. My husband had surgery to remove the Body and the Tail of the Pancreas , the Spleen and 20 Lymph Nodes.
The Cancer was in 14 of the Lymph Nodes. It was also discovered in his lungs. He had a rough recovery from the Surgery but finally started to feel better after 6 months. We had a good year where we could go out to dinner with Friends and enjoy our Sons and their families.
He never really gained his strength back and the Oncologist felt that he was too weak to undergo Chemo and I agreed. I honestly felt that was why we were able to enjoy that year together.
Unfortunately, about 2 months ago, he started to lose his appetite and lost 17 lbs in 3 weeks.
Things have slowly gone down hill since then. He has absolutely no appetite, barely eating or drinking and sleeps a good part of the day. We have been married for 51 years and this is the hardest thing we have ever been through. You always have ups and downs in a marriage but they were always fixable. This we cannot fix . I have always been a very strong person but I have to admit that I am not feeling very strong now.
We are with Hospice now and they are all the most wonderful people and certainly helping to make things easier and they are there to talk to when I need them .
I hope that your Journey goes well for you and your Husband. Please just be there for him when he needs you. Enjoy being with Friends and Family . Take Trips if you can and go places you always wanted to see. Love will get you through this !

Hello, My name is Ginamaria and I was diagnosed with 4th stage of pancreatic cancer in 2024. I am just about to complete second chemo treatment and my petscan on Friday showed NED

@ginamaria I will be done with chemo by the end of May and looking for suggestions for a reliable detox center that can help me clean my system of all the chemo and boost my immune system, please share recommendations.

@56pan Thank you for yur response. No they did not give him any pain medication. Just for nausea during chemo which starts wednesday.

@suelannon I am so sorry you are going through this. thank you for responding. i probably won't be coming in here for a while , due to so busy .

Hello,
My name is Carol and my husband Jim was diagnosed with stage 2 PC this past January. He is 78, just finished his first round of chemo which he didn't tolerate well & is now scheduled for the Whipple Procedure May 21st followed by more chemo.
I'm frightened because I don't feel he understands or is physically ready for
the gravity of this surgery.
Our life has been hijacked by this disease & I don't see it getting any easier.

That's good to know. Thank you.

@jimcaskowski Carol, " Hijacked by this disease " is exactly what it does. My husband was diagnosed in July 2024 as Stage 4. We didn't do much of anything for over a year except Scans and blood work and visits to the Oncologist and wonder how much time we had. Finally, this past winter we took two trips to the Caribbean with our son and is family . The first trip was wonderful and my husband did really well. The second trip was much harder on my husband but on his good days, we made some wonderful memories with our Grandchildren. My husband started to decline on this trip but he said it was the best thing we could have done ! My husband is now on Hospice and in the final stage of this horrible disease. My only regret through all of this is that I wish we had not worried so much about the scans and the bloodwork and that we took more trips with our Family and just had fun !

The surgery itself was tough on my husband physically as he had a lot of complications for 6 months after the surgery. He had two large abscesses that landed him back in the hospital and he had to have drains for 6 months. He had a staff infection that also put him back in the hospital and pneumonia that followed with a collapsed lung. He was a big strong man before all of this but he never got his strength back. I have to say though , we went to University of Penn in Phila and the Staff there were absolutely wonderful and could not have done more to help my husband. Very compassionate and caring .