I was told that nobody lives with pancreas, but 31 years later I’m still here – fight for a remedy

As Jacquelyne Froeber tells

In 1994 I was in the emergency room when the health service provider told me that pancreatic cancer was only diagnosed with 65-year-old black men.

But there was a 44-year-old white woman with a mass on my pancreas.

The whole scene felt like a bad dream. I had fun at a party just an hour earlier. Then I knew what I was in the emergency room with severe back pain. I thought it was gallstones- I had heard that gallstones were very painful.

I had never heard of pancreas.

But I haven’t felt like me for some time now. About six months before the visit, I went to my health service provider to get some tests. I had high chest pain (probably stress), digestive problems (probably my diet), weight loss (but the diet worked!) And I was tired all the time. I was so drained that I hardly had the energy to play tennis – the sport I loved. But nobody called me because of my test results and I thought that no news was good news.

It turned out that my provider had left the practice and had never received my test results. In fact, there was a fair on my pancreas. I had pancreas.

The diagnosis did not feel real. I was relatively young, active and had no family history of cancer. I wanted to answer and wanted to learn everything I could about the disease. But I quickly found out that there wasn’t much to learn. I could not find any significant research or training on pancreas. And no information about the disease in women.

The worst thing was to hear from providers that nobody lives with pancreas. I had to put up with the fact that I would die.

That was unacceptable for me. I wanted to see and marry my son. I wanted to meet my future grandchildren. I knew I had to do everything to live.

My treatment options were limited. There was no chemotherapy for pancreas. For me it was an operation or nothing. I had a whipple process that removed the tumor in my pancreas and reconstructed my digestive tract. After the operation, I was diagnosed with a slimy cystaloscarcinoma, a rare, slowly growing cancer. And although we caught it early, there was a chance that it could come back.

I was more than grateful that the cancer was removed, but nobody prepared for what to expect with a new digestive tract. Certain foods would keep me in the bathroom for hours and on a few days I couldn’t get out of bed because of the pain and nausea. I felt so alone. There were no nutritional areas familiar with pancreas. I didn’t even have an oncologist who specializes in pancreas. I had the feeling that I stumbled around in the dark and tried to find a light.

The American Cancer Society said that most people have not lived with pancreatic cancer in the past five years. This fact played on a loop in my head almost every day. I would wake up in the morning and be grateful to be alive, and then ask myself – was the day today? Then I made it up to five years – no indication of illness. I felt an unknown hope in my heart. Maybe the small amount of research was wrong.

But shortly after the five -year brand, the cancer came back and it was more aggressive than before. I was destroyed.

Again my only option was an operation, so I left the rest of my pancreas away with my spleen and gallbladder. I also had my first CT scan after the operation, and although the technology was impressive, the imaging showed that the cancer had spread to my lymph nodes. I wanted to have another operation to remove the lymph nodes immediately, but my oncologist said they were not operational.

I spoke to various oncologists for the next two years and finally found one who has been investigating pancreatic cancer for years. He helped me open a treatment plan and find a surgeon to remove the lymph nodes.

When I stepped down and looked at all the time and energy that I had overturned for my health, I found that I had to do more. Not only for me – but for everyone like me who desperately searched for information, innovation and hope. I started to examine the interests of the interests of interest, and finally I became the first survival research research lawyer for pancreatic cancer in the USA

All donation campaigns, legislative visits and review of the upcoming pancreas research and clinical studies helped alleviate the terrible news that the cancer had come back in 2006. This time it was in my lungs.

My health service provider wanted to take all tests because the place was small, but I insisted on a biopsy. When the results came back, I was right – it was positive for pancreatic cancer. I then had an operation to remove the lower ditch.

It was incredibly difficult to go through all of these operations and still know that cancer can reappear at any time. But over the years I have worked with many local, national and international organizations to promote research and treatment options for pancreatic cancer. I helped the US Department of Defense to create the research program for pancreatic cancer – and I still work with them today.

I am probably the proud to be the founder of the first pancreatic cancer support group in Arizona. We started it more than 20 years ago and continue to help people get in touch with people and support mental health.

We have covered a long way in the fight against pancreatic cancer, but there are still many mountains to climb. I think back of my initial diagnosis and it is said that pancreatic cancer is a man’s disease. It’s just not true. Women get pancreas. And the rates rose for younger people under the age of 50.

If you or someone you know that it has symptoms like me – pain in the chest, weight loss, changes in your digestive system – speak to your health service provider immediately. Let no one say that women do not get pancreas. I am a living proof that we do that.

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Our real women, real stories are the authentic experiences of women in real life. The views, opinions and experiences that are shared in these stories are not supported by healthwomen and do not necessarily reflect the official politics or position of healthwomen.

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