Pancreatic Cancer

Several years ago (I don't remember exactly when) I heard a rumor that Aretha Franklin had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

On Thursday, sadly, that rumor proved itself correct (I will do a musical tribute post to Aretha Franklin on Monday).

Pancreatic cancer is personal for me.  It killed an aunt, an uncle and a great aunt (both sides of my family have been touched).  Someone I walked with at lunch for years lost her brother in law to it.  A former boss lost her sister to it.  And on and on.

Pancreatic cancer is personal to the purveyor of the best fried fish in the universe, too.

Back in November of 2009, the food truck of a restaurant located in upstate New York, Doug's Fish Fry, did a month of pancreatic cancer fundraisers.  A portion of proceeds were donated to PANCAN.

I wrote most of the following post in November of 2009.  To me, it is shameful that pancreatic cancer remains one of the most deadly, if not most deadly, of cancers.  It's hard to detect early, which would be a key to early treatment.

One day pancreatic cancer will be as easy to diagnose as breast cancer, or cervical cancer.  We can always dream.  And pray.  At one of the fundraisers back in 2009, we saw an information plaque which gave various facts about pancreatic cancer.  One of them was pretty sobering:  it said that the state of pancreatic cancer research is approximately where breast cancer research was in the 1930's.

Well, we who were alive in the 1970's know how much the fight against breast cancer has advanced since then.

Circa 1960's, if a woman was suspected of having breast cancer, she went under the knife.  Many times they did something called a frozen section biopsy while the woman was under.  If this biopsy was positive for cancer, the mastectomy was done then and there.  No counseling, no opportunity for the woman to make a treatment decision, no warning, no nothing.  The woman woke up minus a breast.  Who cared about her feelings?

How grateful we women (and men, as men get breast cancer, too - did you know that?) should be for the amount of progress made since then.

Now it is time to apply that same can-do spirit to pancreatic cancer.  Why?
1.  There was no early detection method for pancreatic cancer (as of 2009, and I believe that is still true).
2.  (partially as a result of #1) this is one of the most deadly forms of cancer there is.  We were talking an approximately 4% survival rate after five years in 2009.  Now it's up to 7%, according to the American Cancer Society.

It is not unknown for people to die less than a month after diagnosis.  That is devastating to the family, never mind the person with the cancer.

3.   Not that celebrities should be more important than the rest of us but do you remember:  Michael Landon?  Jack Benny?  Donna Reed?  Rex Harrison?  Joan Crawford?  Fred Gwynne? Luciano Pavarotti?  (some of these are more baby boomer icon names). How about Sally Ride? Patrick Swayze? Steve Jobs? Bonnie Franklin? Pernell Roberts? And now, Aretha Franklin?

The sad but true fact is that it is the loss of celebrities (or the famous) that call people to action.  Although, as this article points out, there aren't too many "famous" spokepeople for this illness-they don't survive long enough.

If a cause isn't (excuse the expression) "sexy", it doesn't get the money.

Pancreatic cancer certainly doesn't get money for research the way some other cancers do.  Not to take away the importance of any cancer, but I believe funding must become more even between types of cancer.

That would be such a wonderful way to honor the memory of the Queen of Soul.

(Written in honor of my aunt Trudy, who died from pancreatic cancer in August of 1974).