After complaining of stomach pain for about 8 months, Kyle went to the ER thinking something was wrong with his gallbladder. Quite a few tests and a CT later, we were told there was a mass on his pancreas and fluid in his abdomen. Without an official biopsy, the doctor could not give a diagnosis but she was pretty sure he had pancreatic cancer. The way she told us the news will be etched in my brain forever. She mentioned the fluid first and Kyle, in his normal sarcastic way, said ‘Fluid!! Well at least that means it’s not cancer!’ Then she mentioned the tumor. My world stopped. I couldn’t hear anything. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t stop the tears from coming in the middle of the hallway in a crowded ER.
I stood there, paralyzed, in what felt like the worst moment of my life. I looked at him and just stared. It would be a few more weeks before we received the official diagnosis of Stage 4 Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer. The ‘old man’ cancer. The cancer with an average patient demographic of 72 years old and male. Kyle was 36. Healthy, vibrant, charming, witty, sarcastic, beautiful – and only 36 years old.
While we waited for the official diagnosis, we decided to take a weekend away with friends to enjoy some ‘us’ time and look for a distraction from the news we feared. And then it happened. His doctor called us with the biopsy results and confirmed our worst nightmare. I curled into his lap at the hotel that night and we cried together. Until then, we had only told immediate family and a couple of close friends, some of whom were on the trip with us. Things had changed now. We had to start telling people. We had to start telling everyone.
To date, there are a few days that stick out in my mind as the worst days of my life. One of them was the night we sat our four beautiful kids down and told them their dad had cancer, a cancer that has a less than 9% survival rate of 5 years. Kyle’s doctor gave him 6 months without treatment and 12 months with treatment.
In the weeks following the initial diagnosis, I called every major cancer center in the United States – and I mean EVERY cancer center. I was determined to get him to see the best doctors. I never imagined I would lose him – I refused to lose him. We were going to beat this no matter what the odds or statistics said; the numbers didn’t mean anything to me. Through determination, dumb luck, and a few friends in the right places, I was able to get him an appointment him with the top GI oncologist at Stanford University Medical Center. It was there that Kyle started a trial drug of immunotherapy and high dose chemotherapy.
