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My Story is about Me

This event took place from 09/01/2021 to 11/11/2025

The Discovery

I was an avid runner, 5 miles a day everyday. In mid August I noticed my running was more labored and over about a week my time to complete was getting longer. I was scheduled for an annual physical at end of August and planned to discuss this with my doctor. A few days before the visit I had my full blood test and everything was good except liver function numbers, Alkaline Phosphate was 440. Two days later at the doctor’s visit she wanted another immediate blood test and when result came back later the evening that value had risen to 770. Within an hour I was in the emergency room getting a full liver workup. They confirmed a mass in the area of my pancreas, liver, and common bile duct. The next day I was moved to another hospital that could do and ERCP and they confirmed a cancerous tumor on my pancreas blocking my common bile duct after 2 ERCPs and then performed a third to install a stent in the bile duct.

This is My Story

I was 74 at the time I was diagnosed and 78 now. As I stated earlier I was and always have been an avid runner and have also always been active in many sports such as water and snow skiing, volley ball, soccer, roller blading, and rock climbing and others. Because of my lifestyle I have always been in excellent health and fitness. This certainly contributed to my knowing something was not right in August 2021. Had I not already have been scheduled for a physical I would have scheduled A doctor’s visit.

When I met with my care team at Johns Hopkins, they went over the options and the surgeon recommended putting me on Folfirinox chemo Due to my excellent overall health and fitness so that is what we did. He did warn that a majority of patients could not tolerate that chem but felt I would be fine. I came in after four treatments for a CT scan to monitor progress in shrinking the tumor. On that visit they could no longer determine the presence of a tumor on my pancreas (original tumor was 1.5 cm by .75 cm). The surgeon said he was amazed at my response to the chemo. At that point the surgeon said I could decide how we should proceed, stop chemo and do surgery, finish all six months of chemo and then do surgery of stay with original plan. It was now near Christmas and he asked if there was anything I had planned or wanted to do before this all occurred. My answer was stick to the plan because it would allow me to be with my family for Christmas and after finishing chemo to have time to go with friends to Vail to ski the first two weeks of February 2022.

During the chemo I never had any significant issues with nausea, in fact I had lost 10 pound while in the hospital being diagnosed and I was able to gain back several pounds while on chemo. I was able to drive myself to and from chemo treatments and on most days eat what I normally ate. The chemo treatments following Whipple were a little more difficult but never got sick from the treatments. I do have some nerve damage so do not run like I did but I did walk about three miles a day throughout my treatment and now walk and jog about 4 miles a day and have always worked out with weights at the gym. My fitness has always been important to me and I believe it is a key part of why I am here today.

The Impact of Time

I was in the hospital a total of six days and left knowing only that I had Pancreatic cancer, with no idea how serious it was. It was about 2 weeks later when I found out it had been caught early (stage2B). Some of the delay resulted because all of this occurred during the second wave of covid and for example, the first hospital had used all of their contrast solution treating Covid patients and could not determine the exact location of the tumor. Also, they had to try 11 hospitals in the greater Washington DC area to find one that could do an ERCP and was not Code Red or Yellow Due to Covid patients.

Early detection played a critical role in the fact I was able to receive the Whipple Surgery and am still here and doing well, cancer free more than four years after diagnosis. My treatment included 3.5 months of folfirinox pre-surgery, the Whipple followed by 2.5 more months of chemo. Please see below for more information about me and my treatment.