Walking through fire

November is Pancreatic Cancer Awareness month. (Funnily enough, this passed me by last November.) As the month draws to a close I thought I would mark the occasion by providing you with a blog on some things you might not know about the pancreas (an underrated organ if ever there was one). Please note, apart from some basic biology dredged up from my memory, most of this is gleaned from Google search so - as they say - please don't rely on this for any medical or diagnostic purposes. If you need to, talk to a proper medical doctor. 1. We all have one (but can survive without one) Your pancreas is a leaf-shaped gland, about 15 cm long, which curls around the back of your stomach, just in front of your spine. It has a good blood supply and a duct or tube which empties into the small intestine just below the stomach.   It's a multipurpose organ. Firstly it produces different enzymes which, once they have gone down the pancreatic duct into the small intestine, help break down sugar...

A year ago today my life was flung onto a completely unexpected arc.  We were shown into the consulting room, and I remember the doctor's eyes above his mask as he explained that I had a 3.7cm diameter lesion in my pancreas and another in my liver. It was probably not operable. I needed some more tests and then it was likely that I would be offered chemotherapy - but the aim would be to prolong my life rather than cure the cancer. A year on. One of the toughest of my life, and the prognosis hasn't changed. But the positives are many. The first is: I'm still here. I'm already on the right side of the survival statistics for pancreatic cancer.  In fact I am more than still here. Up until this week when I restarted chemo (see below), I have been working full time and I'm still able to do pretty much everything I want. I've seen my sons' fourteenth and seventeenth birthdays, and my 56th. Barring disasters (being run over by a bus?!) I will be around for Christma...