Phil's Pancreatic Cancer Research

December 7, 2016 our father became ill, but as always it took him seven days to tell our mother. After hearing his symptoms she immediately made an appointment with their physician. Upon hearing all of his symptoms and examining him the doctor became very concerned and sent him to a specialist. After many tests we heard what no child would ever want to hear, our father had pancreatic cancer. Soon after, he was sent to Penn Medicine to see a cancer surgeon and was told he needed whipple surgery to remove any organs that could have cancer. After the surgery and a month of a very difficult recuperation he was told that he needed six months of chemo therapy and six weeks of radiation, which he is currently going through.

 When my father had the surgery all of his five children and their families, wife, sister, brother in law and friends were all present. For the seven hours that the surgery took we talked about how funny our dad is and all the times he made us laugh and then talked about all he had done for all of his children, family and friends and how painful it would be to not have him around and happiness turned to sadness. God was on his side and the surgeon removed all of the cancer and with a lot of luck it won’t return.

 Prior to the surgery and after the surgery my father took part in a trial to try to determine how to detect pancreatic cancer in it’s early stages. My husband and I wanted to find a way to help my father as he has helped us and so many people. We came up with the idea to have a benefit, but being the wonderful man he is, when we told him he said that he didn’t want people to donate money to him but to donate money for the Pancreatic Cancer Research Foundation to hopefully find a cure for this horrible illness. All of the proceeds from this benefit will be donated to this foundation on my father’s behalf. He would also like to include all the names of people that have donated money.