Pancreatic Cancer Awareness
Donation protected
www.pancan.org
My mom was diagnosed in early August 2014 with Pancreatic Cancer. Unfortuantely, her hard fought battle was short, and she passed away on October 14. My mom, as most mom's are, was instrumental in raising my sister and I. She quit her job in 1982 to begin her family. She remained a stay-at-home mom for more than 15 years before returning to work to support my parent's efforts of helping my sister and I through college. She did all of this while putting up with the headaches and crap that I put her through as a teenage boy.
Fast forward to 2013 to when my wife was a few weeks out of giving birth to my son, her only grandchild. She left my dad at home and visited for several weeks to help my wife and I transition into parenthood.
That was the thing about my mom, she always put everyone else in front of herself. She would help as much as she could, anytime she could. My mom also lived by the mantra, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all." A trait that sometimes I wish she passed onto me. Though her battle with pancreatic cancer was short, she fought until the very end. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) spent an estimated $105.3 million on pancreatic cancer research in 2012. This represented a mere 1.8% of the NCI’s approximate $5.8 billion cancer research budget for that year. In an effort to continue her fight and the fight against Pancreatic Cancer, I'm asking everyone to support my effort to raise money to fight PanCan. November is Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month and I'm hoping to keep donations open through Thanksgiving.
Pancreatic Cancer Facts:
An estimated 46,420 Americans will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the U.S., and over 39,590 will die from the disease.
Pancreatic cancer is one of the few cancers for which survival has not improved substantially over nearly 40 years.
Pancreatic cancer is the 4th leading cause of cancer-related death in the United States.
Pancreatic cancer has the highest mortality rate of all major cancers. 94% of pancreatic cancer patients will die within five years of diagnosis – only 6% will survive more than five years. 74% of patients die within the first year of diagnosis.
The average life expectancy after diagnosis with metastatic disease is just three to six months.
Few risk factors for developing pancreatic cancer are defined. Family history of the disease, smoking, age, and diabetes are risk factors.
Pancreatic cancer may cause only vague symptoms that could indicate many different conditions within the abdomen or gastrointestinal tract. Symptoms include pain (usually abdominal or back pain), weight loss, jaundice (yellowing of the skin and eyes), loss of appetite, nausea, changes in stool, and diabetes.
Treatment options for pancreatic cancer are limited. Surgical removal of the tumor is possible in less than 20% of patients diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Chemotherapy or chemotherapy together with radiation is typically offered to patients whose tumors cannot be removed surgically.
Pancreatic cancer is a leading cause of cancer death largely because there are no detection tools to diagnose the disease in its early stages when surgical removal of the tumor is still possible.
My mom was diagnosed in early August 2014 with Pancreatic Cancer. Unfortuantely, her hard fought battle was short, and she passed away on October 14. My mom, as most mom's are, was instrumental in raising my sister and I. She quit her job in 1982 to begin her family. She remained a stay-at-home mom for more than 15 years before returning to work to support my parent's efforts of helping my sister and I through college. She did all of this while putting up with the headaches and crap that I put her through as a teenage boy.
Fast forward to 2013 to when my wife was a few weeks out of giving birth to my son, her only grandchild. She left my dad at home and visited for several weeks to help my wife and I transition into parenthood.
That was the thing about my mom, she always put everyone else in front of herself. She would help as much as she could, anytime she could. My mom also lived by the mantra, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all." A trait that sometimes I wish she passed onto me. Though her battle with pancreatic cancer was short, she fought until the very end. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) spent an estimated $105.3 million on pancreatic cancer research in 2012. This represented a mere 1.8% of the NCI’s approximate $5.8 billion cancer research budget for that year. In an effort to continue her fight and the fight against Pancreatic Cancer, I'm asking everyone to support my effort to raise money to fight PanCan. November is Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month and I'm hoping to keep donations open through Thanksgiving.
Pancreatic Cancer Facts:
An estimated 46,420 Americans will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the U.S., and over 39,590 will die from the disease.
Pancreatic cancer is one of the few cancers for which survival has not improved substantially over nearly 40 years.
Pancreatic cancer is the 4th leading cause of cancer-related death in the United States.
Pancreatic cancer has the highest mortality rate of all major cancers. 94% of pancreatic cancer patients will die within five years of diagnosis – only 6% will survive more than five years. 74% of patients die within the first year of diagnosis.
The average life expectancy after diagnosis with metastatic disease is just three to six months.
Few risk factors for developing pancreatic cancer are defined. Family history of the disease, smoking, age, and diabetes are risk factors.
Pancreatic cancer may cause only vague symptoms that could indicate many different conditions within the abdomen or gastrointestinal tract. Symptoms include pain (usually abdominal or back pain), weight loss, jaundice (yellowing of the skin and eyes), loss of appetite, nausea, changes in stool, and diabetes.
Treatment options for pancreatic cancer are limited. Surgical removal of the tumor is possible in less than 20% of patients diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Chemotherapy or chemotherapy together with radiation is typically offered to patients whose tumors cannot be removed surgically.
Pancreatic cancer is a leading cause of cancer death largely because there are no detection tools to diagnose the disease in its early stages when surgical removal of the tumor is still possible.
Organizer
Ryan Pollack
Organizer
South Bend, IN
