Purple Stride

As I noted in an earlier post, the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network holds fundraising events (Purple Stride) across the United States in the form of competitive runs, fun runs, walks, swims, & bike rides.  This past Saturday was the date for the event in Charlotte, North Carolina.  We have some good friends (dating back all the way to high school!), Chris & Carol Ball, that live in Charlotte and completed the event.  To say that they completed the event is really an understatement as they were the 2nd highest fundraisers for the event & Carol placed 2nd in her age group for the run -- how awesome is that!!  They have further motivated us to participate in the event coming up in San Diego on October 13th.  Don't think that we will be big fundraisers (that is definitely not our forte) or place in our age groups (especially since David will only be a few days beyond his final chemoradiation treatment), but we will give it our best effort to finish the 5K course.  Anyone else up for a walk in the Mission Bay area on October 13th?

David now has four chemoradiation treatments under his belt, with 21 treatments left to go (his last treatment date should be Wednesday, October 9th).  This treatment is proving to be tougher than we had anticipated.  When he received chemotherapy alone, he was given several IV anti-nausea medications, so nausea was never a big side effect for him.  However, with the chemoradiation, he takes an oral chemotherapy agent in the AM & PM on radiation treatment days (Monday thru Friday).  The biggest side effect so far has been nausea.  He is doing an excellent job of continuing to eat small amounts frequently throughout the day, chewing on all sorts of ginger products that help combat nausea (just smelling the stuff makes my stomach turn & it tastes like you are eating sage!), & taking prescription anti-nausea medications when needed.  So far the nausea has not escalated & he has been able to maintain his weight.  Last Thursday before David's first chemoradiation treatment, he went in to have some blood work done & we found that his cancer marker (CA 19-9) had dropped to 244 (was at 437 when his last blood work was done on 8/20).  While he still has a way to go to be back in the normal range of 30 to 42, we were thrilled with the trend of this number dropping over the past few blood draws.  His red blood cell count, hemoglobin, hematocrit, and platelets are still low, but we are hoping they will recover a bit or at least not drop any more while he continues the chemoradiation treatments. 

So, we are hopeful that David will continue to be a candidate for surgery sometime in November.  To that end, David has been doing quite a bit of research on surgeons around the country that are experienced at performing the Appleby or modified Appleby procedure, which would be the procedure that he would need to have done.  He has tracked down a few qualified surgeons in the United States & spoke with one on the phone today.  We are hoping & praying that our research will keep us right here in San Diego with Dr. Lowy, but we would be willing to go elsewhere if we believe that David's outcome would be better somewhere other than San Diego.  We still have some investigating to do on this particular issue.

Once again, thank you for your continued support, prayers, encouragement, & love.  They mean the world to us!!  As they say at the Purple Stride events, "Pancreatic Cancer: Know it, Fight it, End it"!!  Janet