sister dx with pancreatic cancer surgery not an option

On Jun 27, 2012 2:06 PM kadykat wrote:

Hi all, my sister age 59 was just dx. with pancreatic cancer  after 7 months of complaing to her gastro dr. he finally relented to give in to tests, he kept telling her that she had ibs. We went to a surgeon yesterday  at Columbia Presb. In Manhattan very nice group of drs. Thay can not do surgery as the tumor has been wrapped around the mesenertic artery. The drs sugessted she see an oncologist and radiation therapist to try to shrink the tumor away from the artery.has "" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://artery.has " target="_blank" rel="nofollow">artery.has anyone had any success with this, she is dwon to 100 pounds and I don't think that she could survive chemo.

Thank you, Kady

im so  sorry to hear about ur sister.  my father had the same problem with not being able to have surgery due to the artery being wrapped around the tumor.  my dad became extremely ill for no apparent reason two yrs ago.  he went to so many different docs but primarily saw a gi doc repeatedly.  he had ct scans, mri, endoscopy, colonoscopy, sigmoidoscopy, blood tests, ultrasounds, etc and nothing.  a yr ago in july he was at a routine visit with his urologist.  my parents told the doc of what symptoms he was having.  the urologist orders a pet scanwhich revealed pancreatic cancer.  he never smoked, drank and excercised and ate healthy faithfully.  it was a huge shock.  my dad intially went thru a clinical trial which did not shrink the tumor.  he then started on another clinical trial after which the cancer had spread to a lymph node.  his bp started becoming irratic and ended up having a heart attack but was brought back to life and he had a pacemaker put in.  since he has the pacemaker he can no longer have radiation.  he started more chemo but developed stomach bleeds which he noticed alot of blood in his stool.  within one month he needed three procedures to zap his bleeds.  the bleeding was so severe he needed nineteen blood transfusions within a month.  since the blood loss his rbc was too low to receive chemo anymore.  he developed ascites.  he had it drained twice in less than a wk...total of seven liters drawn.  i knew at that point it was the beginning of then end.  he passed away r wks ago.

Hi Kady,

I am sorry to hear about your sister. My mom is a patient at Colombia Presb and was diagnosed last May with stage 4 PC.  They treated her with chemo, gemzar, and a clinical trial drug.  They were not able to operate on my mom as well since the tumor was pressing on her aorta.  The chemo did help my mother and it even shrunk the tumor a little for the first 6 months.  They did not expect her to live over a year and we are going on 15 months.  You just have to keep trying new things and take your doctors advice.  Never give up and keep fighting.  I know it's hard, but we have had several close calls with my mom where I thought we were going to lose her, and somehow, someway, she pulled through.  Good luck and let me know if you need any other info.

On Jul 25, 2012 7:24 PM Jkelly wrote:

Hi Kady! I was Dx with Pancreatic Cancer on August 11, 2010. I am 52 years old . I went through 5FU chemo treatments, 25 rounds of radiation, and one more round of the 5FU. We saw a specialist at Barnes Jewish in st. Louis, another in Wisconsin, and also went to MD Anderson. No one could help me. I they saw a surgeon in Louisville, Kentucky by the name of Dr. Robert Martin. He preformed a new surgery on me called the I.R.E. I had the surgery last August and I had an MRI last week. Everything still looks good. With this surgery the mass is not removed, but they poke holes in the tumor with electrical probes. I was under weight when I started so I had to have a feeding tube, which I just had removed. Maybe send her records to Dr. Martin's office. He will review them and let you know if he thinks he can help. My tumor was to large the first time I saw dr. Marin. We went to see a faith healer by the name of dr. Nemeh. My tumor shrank and I was able to have the surgery. You can look up both Dr. Robert Martin at the University of Louisville and Dr. Nemeh on line. I'll be praying for you and your sister. Judy

Hi.  Your story sounds a lot like my husband's!  He has the Nanoknife in December 2011.  We first saw Dr. Strausberg (aka the grim reaper) in St. Louis.

Kady,

I am so sorry to hear about you sister.  My mom also has pancreatic cancer. They did not find out until after the opened her up that the cancer was wrapped around the artery.  The surgery did what he could to remove as much of the tumor and he was hopefully that chemo and radiation would take care of the rest.  Due to other problems my mother's chemo was delayed for several months and the tumor has grown.  She di have 5 rounds of Chemo but has to stop after she had an infection in her pancreatis.  Because of the location of the tumor and it being wrapped around the artery, my mother is not able to have radiation at this point. The doctors are going to o a scope tomorrow to see if she can have surgery again to remove enough of the tumor to do radiation. The doctors have advised me not to get my hopes up.  I highly recommend that you get a second opinion. If you live Manhattan I would contact Sloan Kittery Hospital.  My aunt has stage IV lung cancer 6 years again and she is still alive because of them.

Hi there. My mom was diagnosed in Feb 2012 with PC. It was in the arteries as well so no surgery. She had a stent put in In Feb and It was replaced wuth a metal one in April. She lost weight at first but after the stent she could eat a little more. She has a lot of yogurt and we also make shakes with Glucerna (diabetic version of Ensure) by adding frozen fruit and putting it in the blender. She started Gemcidabine in March and will have her last chemo tmw, finishing her 6th cycle. We are very nervous about stopping but her body needs a rest. Her dr originally said they'd do a combo of chemo/radiation after the 6 months but now says she thinks it will be too much for her and it is all about the quality of life at this point. She did have some nausea and lost a little hair but the main complaint is fatigue on the chemo. After the first few months, we got her out a little at a time and that really helped. They say that the more inactive you are, the more tired you are. She's now gardening and going to dinner, parties etc... It's great to see. She takes a nap (or just rests) every afternoon. She is 78 but was very active before this which makes a difference in tolerating the chemo. She did get a few infections along the way but all in all, she did very well on the chemo. She had a CAT scan after 4 mos of chemo and thd tumor had not grown or spread, which was the best we could hope for. She'll have the next one after we come back from vacation and hopefully it will be the same. If it is, she'll have scans every 3 mos after that. Once the initial shock wore off, we decided to make the most of our/her time with us and I really believe that this chemo helped with that. I hope this helped a little. Good luck to you and your family. It is a long road.

Thank you for your good wishes. We are all in this boat together and we need to support each other with our wishes, hopes, and prayers. I wish your Mom the very best!! Thank you again!

Lucillina