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Beating the Odds with Pancreatic Cancer Hi, my name is Roger and I'm 63 years old. I am a resident of Montana, but not all the time. I'm a Nebraskan. Moved out here about twenty years ago. Worked in a gold mine for twenty years. I'm married to a very loving wife. We got three children. We got six grandchildren. In the beginning--our cancer problems go back a long ways. My wife had cancer eight years ago and we went through the whole ordeal while I was well and got her through. She is an eight-year veteran of breast cancer, and now I'm a two-year veteran of pancreatic cancer. It all started off when I was

operating heavy equipment in the mine. I was having problems keeping food down. It just kind of gradually came on, and finally I went to my local doctor and he ran a tube down my throat and really couldn't tell anything. He got clear down to my stomach and said, "Well, it looks like a bruise down there." But then he said, "I think I'll have you go see a gastroenterologist in Bozeman." So I did that, and they tubed me once and said there was some problem with the duodenum, that they'd want to try it again. So they tried it again, and this time they put a balloon in there and blew it out and it collapsed again. So they kept me in the hospital over Christmas, this was in 1999, and did that every day for three days, and finally arrived at the decision that it wasn't going to work. So they thought they'd have to do some surgery to correct this. Well, I got lined up on the second of February of 2000.They opened me up and did a Whipple procedure, which removed half my stomach and duodenum. And in the interim period, they discovered that I had a sizable tumor in my pancreas. Well, I didn't know anything about this. I went in with just hopes of making my stomach make food go through. I woke up after nine hours of surgery and they said I had cancer! [laughing] That kind of came as a shock, [laughs] to say the least. Anyhow, they removed half my stomach, two-thirds of my pancreas and my duodenum. And re-plumbed my small intestine up to the bottom of what stomach I had left, and put the flap of the pancreas on the small intestine and, you know, by golly, I'm still here! Cancer is not fun! Cancer is very, very scary. Now, my oncologist I got connected with decided that I needed to have chemotherapy. So I went twelve months on a 28-day regimen, four days on and 24 off. I know they put enough mustard gas in my body to kill everybody in this hometown I live in--a large amount! But you guys that have been through it know what it's all about. It's not fun. It kind of takes a lot out of you. I had funny things happen. I had to go the first week--during the first week of the chemo, and I'd be just tired, just beat up. The second week I'd have diarrhea really, really bad. The third week I'd have gas, and the fourth week I started feeling pretty good again, just ready to start over again. Well, that went on for twelve months, and I finished up my chemo in February of--I guess it'd be 2001, and here it is December of 2001, and I'm still here. My poor oncologist never saved anybody from pancreatic cancer and I'm going to prove him wrong. I'm trying very hard. You always wonder, why me? Well, not why me, it just happens, and if you got a good strong faith in your Lord and a real loving wife to stand beside you, you can get through just about anything. I feel, basically, pretty good now. You know, I kind of hold that to my walk with the Lord, my association with my wife and a few other things I do. I'm getting fairly mobile again. In fact, I've joined the RSVP [Retired and Senior Volunteer Program] and I'm teaching first graders how to read. I've never had so much fun in my life, and what an appreciation for life, you get from those little tiny guys. I've been doing that this whole school year. Man, I get more from them than they get from me. They're neat little creatures to be around. I just want to keep on keepin' on. The Lord has smiled on me. I can tell this to anybody who's in the same situation; keep your faith, eat right, do good work, and you will be rewarded. I hope you don't have the same problems I've had. I've had a real emotional problem, and I don't know if it's because I'm old [laughing] or because I went through cancer. But I have a real hard time talking, a lot of the time, about what's happened with me. But, you know, it's a great, great feeling to know that you're still here and you're going to go on. And I'm just going to prove my oncologist wrong. I'm going to show him that an old man can still survive this malady, and I've got a lot of things to do before I go. I've got grandkids to get raised and I've got to enjoy life a little bit. I'm not ready to hang it up yet. Anyhow, it's pretty neat knowing you're alive and knowing you're going to stay alive. I've had four CAT scans. I'm due for another one the 20th of this month, and Lord willing, it's going be clean like the rest have been. I'm going to be a survivor. And don't hesitate to get a hold of me if you need help. That's what I'm here for, that's what the Lord's got me here for.