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...

A month since my last update and in some ways quite a lot has happened, but in other ways not much has progressed.  In case you don't want to read the rest, here's the TLDR* version: after a lot of faffing around, I should finally start a new lot of chemotherapy the week after next.  And here's the blow-by-blow account... I last saw the oncologist when we got back from Yorkshire in September and we discussed whether I should have the standard 'second-line' chemotherapy, or the possibility of being part of a clinical trial at the Royal Marsden in London. The trial is looking at a drug which has been successful in a particular type of breast cancer known as 'HER2 positive'. They were looking for patients with other types of cancer which were also HER2 positive.  Initially I didn't think much about this because only around 1 in a hundred pancreatic cancers are HER2 positive. But when they tested my original biopsy from last year it looked like I might be su...

I haven't published a blog for more than two months. Not because nothing has happened - lots of nice things have happened - but because I've been too busy doing them to want to stop and write about them! I finished my last blog expressing a determination to seize each day and live it to the full. I can't say, hand-on-heart, that I have done that every day, but I have had lots of good days and done lots of good things. My aim over the summer was to meet as many friends as possible - and I have definitely done that! I've sat in gardens and living rooms and cafes. I've drunk teas and coffees and prosecco and lots of wine. I've eaten ice creams and cakes. I've talked and walked and talked some more. (And if you are wondering why we haven't met yet, please give me time!) I've also swum in the (UK) sea three times, once without a wet suit (!), seen Dartford warblers, a badger, a dipper and a water vole. I've had a surprise cream tea, been on a spa day,...

A walk Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who sponsored my five mile walk for Pancreatic Cancer UK!  I set myself what I thought was a reasonable fundraising target of £250 - but then you guys got involved. Once the total had shot through £250 and was heading upwards fast, I reset my target to £2000. By the time I did the walk, it was more than £3000 and at the time of writing stands at over £3600. As I've said several time, I am just overwhelmed by everyone's generosity. If by any remote chance you haven't sponsored me yet and would like to, you can still do so up to 16 August. Here's the link to my fundraising page: https://www.thebigstepforward.org.uk/fundraisers/marymilne I'm beginning to wonder about the title of my recent blog So you do fundraising then? No... Perhaps a career in fundraising beckons after all. The walk itself was fun, stretching but not overwhelming. My older son came along, plus the dog of course, and we left at 8.30am so we could ...

I’m writing this sitting in the car in the hospital car park. I’m due my next CT scan today to check the progress of my little friends in my pancreas and liver. My scan was due at 9am but due to a stupid brain freeze on my part I ate some breakfast at 7.30am before re-reading the appointment letter and realising I’d been told not to eat anything for four hours prior to the scan. So now I need to wait… I'm k icking myself, I think this is the fourth CT scan I’ve had in the last year, I really should have remembered. But still it gives me a chance to write a quick blog… The last couple of months have been a lot of fun. I’ve met more friends, drunk more coffee, visited more restaurants, worked more hours, gone for more walks and arranged more holidays… Mostly I’ve felt well. Paracetamol four times a day seems to keep on top of the pain and the pancreatic enzyme supplements I’ve been taking are obviously doing their job because the challenge has been to lose a bit of weight rather than...

First a quick update. Five weeks since my last chemo treatment and counting... Feeling more energetic, sense of taste is returning, numbness in my face, hands and feet still there (especially in my feet) but liveable with.  Next scan in a few weeks and appointment with the oncologist mid-July. On to another blog about my life, and this time, my work. **** Job titles are weird things. I've worked in the voluntary sector most of my life, lots of people work in the voluntary sector in lots of different roles. But the drop down menu for an insurance quote doesn't seem to offer anything other than 'Charity worker'. Even when I'm talking to people face to face, I have problems. Most of my job titles have been some variation on the theme of Campaigns officer/manager. And the usual response is: 'So you do fundraising then?'  <Sigh>   'No...' So, now I have this blog I will take the opportunity to tell the world what campaigning really is, and why it...