Above: PAH and I on board the President Wilson, MBG in1969. Below: PAH at home in 2009 Photo: MLH.
My first husband and I spent an adventurous ten years together before he moved on to the next woman and I went mad. We had two kids together, and they love their pop dearly.
Stomach pain took him to the doctor where they found gall stones and saw a shadow behind the gall bladder. He has been diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer, and he will go in for surgery this noon. The cancer has not metastisized into the lymph nodes, and surgery will take out the gall bladder, the spleen, and the pancreas.
The information offered by
Pancreatic Cancer.org is dismal.
“Each year more than 40,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with adenocarcinoma of the pancreas and more than twice that in Europe. Most of these people will have passed away by the end of the first year. The incidence of pancreatic cancer increases with age; most people are between the ages of 60 to 80 when they receive the diagnosis. Men have tended to be over-represented, though in recent years the gap between men and women has shrunk, possibly due to increased cigarette smoking among women. In the U.S., pancreatic cancer is 9th or 10th most commonly diagnosed cancer (depending on gender), but the fourth leading cause of cancer death in men and women. The median survival period from the time of diagnosis until demise is arguably the worst of any of the cancers. The median survival for untreated advanced cancer of the pancreas is about 3 1/2 months; with good treatment this increases to about six months.”
If surgery is a viable alternative, they say that “…The survival of patients who received the Whipple (surgical) procedure in one study (from a very experienced Johns Hopkins team) were reported out in 1995 as a 21% five-year survival rate, with a median survival of 15.5 months.”
Lessa said something wonderful to the Geezer this week when she found out about her Pop, “After all these years, I wished I had gotten to know you better.
When she told that to me, I replied, “He’s a wonderful guy.”
“Yes, he is,” she agreed.
- Keeping those on the east coast in my thoughts.
- Himself: Doing pretty good. Still waiting for the Fridge. The delivery guys had the wrong phone number.
- Herself: Grrrrrrr……
- Reading: A book about WWII.
- Balance: The warmth under our winter quilt.
