Chapter one

CHAPTER ONE
I get the news.

It started with a pain in my gut. I ignored it for a couple weeks. That usually worked for me, but not this time. I made an appointment to see my doctor. After I described the symptoms, he thought it sounded like diverticulitis and gave me an antibiotic which I took for ten days. Pain was still there. Back to the doctor. He said we’d better get a CAT scan. I thought about the old joke where a cat comes out and looks you over. That wasn’t it. For those who don’t know what it is, you lie on a table and are slid into this huge doughnut that takes a picture of your innards. They had a flatscreen TV mounted on the ceiling, playing a DVD about Yellowstone national Park. It was pretty cool.

Later that same day, I received the call from the doctor. He said “I don’t know how to tell you this other than to come right out and say you have a mass on your pancreas”. Did I hear that right? Did he just tell me I have cancer?  I think he just told me I have cancer! My mind is racing. Omigod - I have cancer! I try to keep it together and listen to the rest of his message. He made appointments with an oncologist and a surgeon. There must be some mistake! We end the call and my brain is numb. What do I do now?

 I go to my computer and go to webmd.com and look up pancreatic cancer. I find that only 20% of people who get it survive. That’s not very encouraging . This cancer typically has no symptoms until it grows so large that it puts pressure on another organ. Then it’s too late. Even though pancreatic is number ten on the list of most common cancers, it’s number four on the death count. Surgery is not an option most of the time.

I let this information sink in for a while. I need a plan. I’m an analytical thinker who breaks a problem down to individual steps and tries to deal with them one at a time. How do I deal with the information I have while collecting more? That comes in Chapter Two.