My father recently told me he has
pancreatic cancer. I am told that it is
terminal, and he was diagnosed october
2003. He has been an alcoholic for years,
and I just recently got back in touch with
him. He says that the cancer has not
spread, however he also says that there is
no treatment available to him. He says he
was offered chemo with a 99.9% chance it
wouldn't be effective and he said it would
make him too sick so he opted not to do
it. He keeps telling me he is fine and
nothing has changed. Does this sound
normal to anyone with any knowledge of
this, or does it sound like he is bs'ing
me ?
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NANS
New User, Becoming EHEALTHy
Joined: 21 Feb 2004 Posts: 4 Location: Va
Pancreatic Cancer Posted: 03-02-04 10:34am
My husband has pancreatic cancer. We are
told he was one of the lucky few who could
have surgery. He had a surgery known as
"whipple", the surgery was extensive. He
also had chemo and radiation.
I am sure that your father is not putting
you on. We were informed that chemo is
ineffective with pancreatic cancer too.
The reason my husband had chemo and
radiation was because the pathology showed
additional cancer cells.
From our experience, this has proven to be
quite painful for my husband.
As a mother of three sons, I speak from my
heart. Please forgive any past hurts and
get to know your dad before it is too
late. All our research indicates that
life expectancy is not very long once
diagnoised. So spend some quality time
with him because I seriously doubt that
anyone would say they have something like
this if it were not so.
May god bless you and your dad as you go
on this journey together.
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tmross
New User, Becoming EHEALTHy
Joined: 21 Apr 2004 Posts: 1
Posted: 04-21-04 11:01am
I'm so sorry to hear about your father.
My husband died 2 years ago with
pancreatic cancer. He was also given a a
99% liklihood of dying. However, his
oncologist told him to go ahead and try to
chemo, even though he had a 1 % chance of
survival. My husband opted for the
treatment, but it had no efftect
whatsoever. He was given 8 months to
live, and he lived almost 8 months.
Pancreatic cancer is almost always fatal
unless detected early, and is usually not
responsive to chemotherapy.
I hope you can spend some time with your
father and be a support to him during
this.
