Kim Vernick:
The Alien inside meI was 52 when I was told I have pancreatic cancer. It must be a mistake but after two hospitals that specialize in pancreatic cancer confirmed the same thing following a battery of tests performed at both institutions, yes I have cancer. Okay…now I must tackle this head on. I will survive this. My advice to all of us with such aliens…stay off the internet. But no…how can you when you need to find out as much information as possible. But the internet had me dead and buried multiple times. Yes, I will be in that small percentage that makes it. So as the doctors told me, I must prepare for the marathon ahead of me. That’s right, “this is a marathon and not a sprint.” Personally I prefer sprints as running was never my thing but since I was now in great physical shape and mentally I am a real tough girl, I was going to beat this alien.
I did keep a medical diary of all that transpired during the year of my marathon. I participated in a clinical trial, which would beat me up even more but increased the chances of reaching the goal of getting me to that surgery table. I consumed drugs to stop the nausea, others to help me from the ensuing constipation caused by the anti-nausea drugs, more to follow to stop the diarrhea when the anti-constipation drugs kicked in….oh and the vomiting. Yes of course there was vomiting but there was nothing to stop that…thank you chemotherapy. But on the other hand…really thank you chemotherapy. After all was said and done they did get the alien. My surgeon stepped to the plate, after my oncologist and radiation oncologist killed the alien, and successfully removed my alien with many of my internal body parts as well. Apparently I do not need my gallbladder nor my spleen nor 2/3 of my pancreas. Fortunately I am left with the part of my pancreas that is necessary to produce enzymes for digestion and to keep me from becoming diabetic. So now I am one year from surgery, drug free, and feeling great when the doctors informed me that I have a suspicious thickening near my gastric junction, in the same place as before. After another battery of tests it is discovered that my alien is back in the same area.
So I retire my tennis racquet for a few weeks, clean out my tennis bag as I always keep snacks in there and we do not want mice in my coat closet. Continued walking but it is really too hot for long walks. Get mentally tough!
The good news is that it is in the same area so it did not spread. The bad news is that it is in the same area and I am pretty messy and damaged in that area. The doctors are now ready for plan “B” and I am now ready for round “2.” We are a team and we need to do this together. So the plan is they will beat me up yet again and hopefully my alien will be obliterated…end of story…never to return. .
Proton radiation is a specialized form of radiation therapy. I asked about this therapy two years ago but they were not using it for pancreatic cancer at the time. Okay, now I get to use those protons. So on my not so comfy mold of my shoulders and arms I will lay on the table while they blast me with protons. Don’t move a muscle but I can breathe normally. Arms raised above my head, knees elevated comfortably with a rounded pillow pad like a massage table…don’t move as we do not want to miss. Thirty minutes…what do I think about for 30 minutes? The beach on a Caribbean island, I can do that for a few minutes, what about the other 25 minutes….alien be blasted…alien be blasted…get it get it rah rah rah.
Emotionally I am trying to stay strong but in reality I am scared. There are too many what ifs to think about. I am trying not to go there at all. My family is going through this too in a different way of course. They don’t want to lose their mother, wife and they are worried as well. Also, the marathon affects the entire family not just me…the victim…or patient…I feel I am more of a victim.
I am ready for this and I will beat it again with the help of my doctors.
Well round two was over a year ago and I am feeling great and having fun living life. The first time was a clinical trial protocol of chemotherapy and radiation and then surgery and then more chemotherapy. Round two was protons and chemotherapy. I will be forever grateful to my doctors, friends and family. But we also must remember to stand and stay tough as it is our responsibility to make sure we get the best care and take care of ourselves. I hope I do not have to participate in any more of these “marathons” but know I can if need be.
I am cancer free and feeling great!
Peter Seuss:
I’m 67 years old and a 4 year and 3 1/2 month survivor, but who’s counting!
My story started in June of 2009. I was feeling very sluggish while on vacation with my family in Galveston. I couldn’t take long walks on the beach; I was too tired.
Besides the fatigue I began to have other symptoms. I had tremendous itching, some weight loss and my urine changed color. I called my family doctor because I thought I had a kidney or bladder infection. He caught that I was turning jaundiced. He sent me to have a sonogram and a CT scan that showed a spot on my pancreas. It was biopsied on August 12, 2009 and it was confirmed - pancreatic cancer. PANCREATIC CANCER!!!!!! We could not believe what we had just heard. I got dizzy and nauseous. Many of you have a date like this burned into your memory.
At that point, all I knew about pancreatic cancer was that it wasn’t good, and I certainly wasn’t ready to die. Patrick Swayze was on the cover of PEOPLE MAGAZINE. He died of pancreatic cancer and it scared me.
We were directed to a doctor who presented a plan of action. My doctor recommended chemotherapy and then radiation with chemotherapy to shrink the tumor, and then surgery. I was lucky – my tumor shrank. On December 29, 2009, I had the Whipple procedure followed by 12 more chemotherapy treatments.
That’s one hell of a surgery! I came out of the hospital with forty-two staples running down the entire front of my body. I’d wake up in the middle of the night, scared that if I moved the wrong way my guts would spill out. They did not and I healed up perfectly!
This treatment worked, for a while. Then, in 2011, my cancer reappeared on the tail of my pancreas. I had another surgery to remove more of my pancreas and my spleen. Three more months of chemotherapy followed. We hoped it worked.
In 2012, another scan showed three spots on my liver. At that time, they used a treatment that wasn’t available to me in 2011; a treatment that only became available after research and clinical trials.
It wasn’t easy. I was supposed to have 12 treatments. I struggled through the summer of 2012, and even spent four days in the hospital. After the tenth treatment, I didn’t think I could do it anymore. I now had lost 100 pounds since diagnosis. My family gathered around me and we all had a good cry. Then we decided together, I MUST DO TWO MORE. I did and on October 17, 2012, I had treatment number 12. From 3 p.m. that day, I started feeling better and I’ve felt better every day since.
Ashley Banter:
I was 24 when I heard “you have inoperable stage IV, metastatic pancreatic cancer, and it has spread to your liver.” The day was November 27, 2012, and although I had been bracing myself for a week before my actual diagnosis, I was still in shock. I was not supposed to be diagnosed with cancer. EVER. And yet, there I was, already thinking about my funeral. I had already decided I did not want treatment. I did not want to spend my last months sick. But, God put my surgeon in my life for a reason. He was devastated at my wanting-to-give-up attitude and insisted I tried chemotherapy (that was my only option). So, I said I would try.
Every person in the medical field I ran into said, “You're just too young!” And I thought, “Tell me something I don't know.” But, scan after scan, treatment after treatment, my tumors were shrinking. My pain was going away. After 6 difficult months of therapy, in June of 2013, my scan showed the seven spots in my liver were down to three and all where under 1 cm in size, some smaller. The tumor in my pancreas, which was around 4 cm to start was down to 1.3 cm. My body was even having a delayed reaction to the chemotherapy, and they still shrank. Everyone, including me, was astonished. Surgery was now a possibility. I never imagined surgery for me.
On August 23, 2013, I had surgery to have 60% of my pancreas (not the Whipple procedure), my spleen, and spots on my liver removed and then my liver was treated with radiation. It was a very rough surgery. I had 50 staples, and I now have a 14” scar on my abdomen. But I do not want it to ever go away. I look at it every day with pride and hope.
On August 25, 2013, my surgeon, and friend by this time, told me I was cancer free. I could not help but hug him! This man, by the work of God, saved my life. I had a scan this past October, and everything looks great. I had a death sentence, but I refused to die. I will share my story to all to show hope. I was given so much hope during my darkest time, and I want to spread it as much as I can. This cancer is not discriminant. It does not care about gender, race, or even, as in my case, age. But hope will always be there. God does work miracles and I truly believe I was saved for a reason.
Kevin Alfont:
I'm a 25 year survivor. At the age of 33, in July, 1988, my gallbladder was removed. My bile duct was blocked due to swelling in the head of the pancreas, which the doctors told me was normal with gallstones (sand in my case). In order to relieve the blockage, the doctor inserted a tube that allowed the blocked bile to drain into a bag outside of my body. I was told that the swelling would go down in a week or so, at which time they would remove the tube.
Seven weeks later, the bile duct had not opened; I had lost 43 pounds and was down to 123 pounds. I was sent to my local medical center for three days of testing. The doctors found an almond-sized tumor in the head of my pancreas that was pushing against the bile duct. I was informed that without surgery, I would not live two weeks. I was given less than a 10 percent chance of surviving surgery and if I did survive the surgery, I would live a maximum of 90 days, but not to expect to live that long. My wife and I discussed the options and I elected to have the surgery.
Guess what? I survived it. They removed half of my pancreas, half of my stomach, and my duodenum. I then underwent both chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Nineteen days after I was admitted to the hospital, I was released and told to enjoy the remaining days that I had.
Well, even after 25 years, my wife and I still enjoy each day as if it were the last we will be together. On Tuesday, October 29th, we celebrated my 59th birthday. I praise the surgeon both for his steady hands during surgery and for his support for both my wife and me during the entire process of recovery. No matter how dire the prognosis, PEOPLE SHOULD NEVER GIVE UP. I'm living proof.
Catherine Lusby:
In January, 2012, I was having some digestive problems that seemed different from my routine 65-year-old issues. On Monday, January 30th, I asked my doctor to run lab work to check for an intestinal infection, even though I was feeling better. Early Tuesday morning, the doctor called. I had very elevated liver enzymes and needed to get a CT scan as quickly as possible; the CT scan was done that afternoon. My husband and I had commented that if we didn’t hear anything for several days, then there was nothing serious going on. But first thing Wednesday morning my doctor's office called to set up a consult for Wednesday afternoon; we knew that we weren’t going to hear good news, but I never suspected the diagnosis I received-probable pancreatic cancer. A tumor was detected on the head of my pancreas and another spot on my liver. Wednesday afternoon and all day Thursday were long days. My mind was constantly racing with “what ifs.” But by that Friday, I was a cancer patient at cancer center specializing in pancreatic cancer. It moved just that fast.
My oncologist very quickly began to connect me to other pancreatic cancer specialists. The tumor in my pancreas was blocking the bile duct, which was responsible for the elevated liver enzyme levels and why I was becoming jaundiced. Within two weeks I saw an endoscopic surgeon who scoped me in order to open up the bile duct and to get a tissue sample of the mass in my pancreas, confirming the initial pancreatic cancer diagnosis. The second specialist I met with was a gastrointestinal surgical oncologist who educated us on the Whipple procedure, my future surgery. From that point and the rest of 2012, things were a blur; our (mine and my husband’s) schedules revolved around the cancer center. After having a port implanted late in February, I began a very aggressive chemotherapy treatment. The four treatments lasted three days each; six hours in the infusion chair followed by 46 hours attached to a portable, battery-powered infusion pump. In May I began 10 sessions of radiation with oral chemotherapy.
Another CT scan and PET scan showed no evidence of cancer any place other than my pancreas. The spot on my liver was determined to be a cyst. My surgeon even scheduled me for a laparoscopic exam just to make sure. I was cleared for surgery and told to train to insure my physical condition was as strong as I could make it. I had six weeks of normal life without any treatment before my Whipple surgery in July. Six weeks later the tumor and a significant portion of my pancreas were removed, an additional six chemotherapy treatments were recommended as a preventative measure. I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to quit, but my husband encouraged me to go on. I had four of the six treatments before my body could take no more. Recovering from surgery was difficult enough but compounded with additional chemotherapy was extremely challenging. BUT I GOT THROUGH IT!
Commentary:
Cancer is something that the humans cannot help if diagnosed with it. Of course there is hope and there must be faith in your body. I feel that the people go through an emotional triumph that may cause them to give up. It is rather not that the people give up, but defeat cancer. Defeating cancer is not the easiest thing to do, but it is most definitely worth fighting involving the lives of many. As a whole, we must continue to encourage and uplift the people in our community with cancer.
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