Panceatic Cancer, Part 9: An Update

On Monday, Peggy had a CAT-scan following her sixth chemo; the results were encouraging. Marc, her oncologist plans to give her six more treatments, and assuming they go well, will follow them up with radiation, and a possible pancreatectomy. 

I asked Peggy in advance for permission to take a picture of her and Marc. When she said no, I persisted, and she objected that Marc wouldn’t want his picture made. I considered this unlikely, but he went me one better by suggesting that his assistant take it so we could all appear. When Marc read her shirt, he said, “I take full credit.”  Perhaps he meant to say that she looks good, as indeed she does, although I thought she looked better when she had no hair at all. 

Within minutes of meeting Marc for the first time, he said that choosing palliative care only would be a reasonable option, and that if she did so, she could expect to live six months. That was four months ago.

As always, he warned her that the chemo will eventually stop working, or that her body will cease to tolerate it. She wished that he hadn’t said this on the happiest day since her diagnosis.

Yesterday, she had her seventh chemo and her second bone strengthener. It's such a terrible combination to endure that she prepared for it by taking an Ativan. She has a number of drugs that many people would kill for, but she rarely takes them.