I have been reading postings on this message board for almost a year now. In a few days, it will be a year since my dad was diagnosed with Stage IV (mets to the liver) pancreatic adenocarcenoma (sorry for the spelling). At that time he was in terrible pain and at diagnosis he was told that people with the same condition as him usually die in about 3-6 months. As many of you know this was devastating news. My dad was only 55 at the time. He is now 56. We did tons of research and within a month he was at two of the most well known hospitals in the country. We come from a small town and wanted to make sure that he saw the best doctors possible. Still we were given little hope. My dad returned home and started chemo with our local oncologist the first week in June. After 2 treatments his pain was almost completely gone. His CA19-9 counts are almost a quarter of what they started at. Even though he has had great success as far as this disease is concerned, it has not been without bumps. In October the treatment he was on stopped working and they had to switch his chemo drugs. Thankfully, those drugs have been working since October. My dad is still working full-time, fishing, remodeling, etc. He is my hero and the strongest person I know. We are determined to fight this disease with everything we have. We have a lot of hope because my dad feels better right now than when he was diagnosed almost a year ago. I wanted to post this message because I hope that my dad's story brings some hope to someone because almost a year ago we were on the internet in a desperate search for any form of hope. We have had an amazing amount of support from friends and family. If I could say anything to someone who is on this journey, is to never give up hope, do your research, be positive, be active, have faith in yourself and your loved ones, do not give up if a treatment is not working instead request another and most importantly have faith in God and prayer. Prayer has helped our family and my dad so much!
Good luck and God Bless!