WPCD

Today, Thursday, November 17, 2016, is World Pancreatic Cancer Day. As I continue to process the slew of changes and challenges that have come at me in the last month, I want to take a moment to recognize this day. A worldwide day of advocacy and action like this is dedicated to people like me, and it means a lot to know that so many around the world are working to make my life better. I know I'm thinking of all the other current pancreatic cancer patients, as well as the small but growing number of pancreatic cancer survivors, worldwide. We are a mighty community, united by intimate, painful, and even life-threatening knowledge of this little organ wedged behind our stomachs.

I will post again soon, and I've been working on several posts for a while now. I have reached what feels like a turning point in my "cancer journey," where everything takes on a new urgency, and all manner of difficult questions are thrown into stark relief. Everything is okay, though, because I am still here and I am still living my best life every day.

About a month ago, my latest CT scan revealed that all of my tumors are growing slightly. This means that the chemo regimen I was on since February, GTX-C, stopped working (because my cancer outsmarted it). So, I've started on a different chemo regimen, FOLFIRINOX, which is just as scary as it sounds. Fortunately, this is standard treatment for pancreatic cancer, and I've met survivors who went into remission thanks to FOLFIRINOX. I've only done one round on this treatment so far, and it was really tough. I think I'm prepared to better manage the side effects for my next round, the day after Thanksgiving. But each chemo infusion is a crapshoot, because the effects are cumulative and there are so many factors that determine how I feel any given day. I definitely have enormous respect for everyone out there who does high-dose chemotherapy on a regular schedule.

This all has me thinking a lot about my mortality. Some of these thoughts are terrifying and heartbreaking, and others are shockingly matter-of-fact. I recently read part of the cancer memoir Malignant: How Cancer Becomes Us, by S. Lochlann Jain. The author, an anthropologist and cancer survivor, expresses the unique limbo of a non-terminal cancer prognosis:

"How could something be at once so transparent (you will live or die)
and so pig-headedly confusing (will you live or die)?"

​She also expresses the bittersweet gratitude I've been feeling in huge quantities lately, this joy at the beauty of life in every moment that is so delightful precisely because I know there is a limit to my moments. I want always to be grateful for the moments I do have, even the bad ones, even the tough ones, even the painful ones. All of it is life.​

"Each morning that I wake up not dead or sick,
I'm happy and miserable at the same time: Pleased to be waking up at all.
Blissed out to have landed on the vitality side of that prognosis."