I’m really sorry for your loss. Pancreatic cancer is just awful. My dad was diagnosed with it years ago but thankfully, it was caught extremely early and is being managed well (there’s no sign of it at this point). I wish you the strength to endure what I’m sure is an extremely difficult time.
You are one of the best posters in our community and I look forward to reading your insights. Hang in there!!
That’s great to hear about your dad.
Some outliers can live a lot of years after a diagnosis if it’s caught early like that, so *knock on wood* hopefully he keeps rocking for a long while.
Well, COVID or no COVID, I can’t come back and not drop a lengthy post, I got my rep to think about.
I assume my proof-reading is up to my usual standards (aka ineffectual/non-existent).
A Few General Comments:
1/ If you’re feeling unwell, push for aggressive cancer screening. If you have an older loved one, push them to have them.
2/ Any older women in your life are getting uniquely f***ed by the health system.
They missed every sign of my mom’s heart disease, her faulty heart valve and her cancer. It was all called stress and digestive issues. Wow do they suck with women’s heart disease. The doctors peddling acid reflux medicine to her up to her heart attack can f*** off forever. (I’m being polite here.)
3/ My mom felt like shit for a while, but her health always took a back seat to everything and everyone else, and that caused a bunch of her health problems to fester.
She had an extraordinarily high pain threshold, higher than anyone than I know. That helped her with chronic pain management, but it also helped her ignore a bunch of glaring warning signs. (And the oh no, I mean, I mean, I don’t wanna, but I haven’t and then oh no doctors did the rest *ahem*.)
For example:
My mom had felt like shit for many months.
One day she felt the unusually awful, and dizzy, but still did a light workout and was trying to do a little paper work. My brother called her. He could tell something was wrong and eventually convinced her to call an ambulance.
She had had a heart attack. (Plus a faulty heart valve and stage four pancreatic cancer.)
TLDR
This obviously also applies to all you fellas here too, particularly the older ones. Don’t gut everything thing out. You don’t win any awards for silent stoicism.
If you’re body is sending you message, you need to act on it, often doing more than what the 1st doctor you see tells you to do. (Because the insurance companies often care more about their bottom line than keeping you alive.)
And I realize this, like most advice, is very easy to give, and not remotely easy to do, but take care of yourselves and your loved ones when ya can. *group hug*
