THE JOHNS HOPKINS MEDICAL INSTITUTIONS
Pancreas Cancer Web
FRED IN CAN
My name is Fred Post, AKA 'Fred in Can'. I am 42 years old, I have a
wonderfull wife and 5 beautiful children. I was accidently or 'by the grace
of God' diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer in 2002. It started with a kidney
stone which sent the whole thing in motion. After a passing of a kidney stone
my doctor suggested I see a specialist in kidneys. After some prodding from
my wife I set up an appointment. I went to see a specialist in Burlington
Ontario. He set up some xrays and once received, reviewed them and told me
that, (and I quote) 'yes there were more stones but they were embedded into
the kidney and therefore there was nothing they could do untill they started
to move on their own'. I kind of left it at that and for a few weeks did not
feel any affects from anything. Except for one nagging thing that just did
not seem to go away. I kept waking up with a back pain. Lower left side.Over
the course of the day it would eventually disappear. One day my wife said to
go back to the doctor and she made the appointment. I told him about my
meeting with the Kidney specialist and he said it was BS and we should get a
second opinion. So he set me up with another specialist in Hamilton and off I
went. This specialist went one step further and decided that yes there were
more stones and they could proceed further. He booked a CT scan. I went
through the CT scan and expected to go through the proceedure of blasting the
stones to bits. a couple of days later I had called into work to take a day
off becuse I was not feeling 100%. I was laying in bed and resting when the
phone rang. I will not forget that day. My wife was outside so I answered the
phone. It was my doctor and he wanted to see me right away. Today! So up I
went. He asked me how I felt and then told me that they need to do some blood
work, urine tests and another cat scan. I asked why? what seemed to be the
problem? He told me that there was a 'suspicious mass on the pancreas' I
remember saying a what? what the heck is a pancreas? I did not even know I
had one. He did not want to alarm me. haha so He sent me to another
specialist, (Pancreas) it was within 2 weeks that I had to meet with this
specialist to have this mass confirmed. I will never forget that meeting. A
little room waiting with my wife, talking about what it could be because
during this time we found this message board and started asking questions.
sooooo.... We thought we were prepared. We were both optimistic that it was a
mistake and there was no problem. Well.... we were wrong, He came in the room
and told us in fact it was cancer. But we were lucky, it was a slower growing
cancer and surgery might take care of things. the odds looked good because
they found it by accident. I took the rest of my time off work and decided to
go on a trip to Holland (I was born there) with my family before we had to
face this uphill climb. Surgery went as good as could be expected. it took 5
hours and they figured they got it all. I was not prepared for the
recuperation time. I was on my back for about a month, could not eat properly
for over a year, My plumbing system did not work properly for over a year.
Slowly things got better, I could not gain my weight back because I could not
eat properly, I had to eat 5 times a day, little bits at a time. I was so
sick of being skinny I joined a health club and hired a personal trainer to
get going. Within a year of the surgery I started working out and within six
months of that I gained 30 lbs back and was down to 4 meals a day. I lost my
job through all of this and my benefits, just befor Christmas of 2002. I
recieved a letter from my employer telling me they no longer needed me. Nice
hey? I had 3 check ups since and was scheduled to go back in this comming
September. So far so good....but for one little thing.......for the past
month I have been getting this nagging back pain...... on my lower let
side.......July 2004. hmmmmmmmmm!
Posted 07/12/2004 11:18 am by Fred in Can
E-mail Address: fredpost@sympatico.ca
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