I’ll probably write something soon about what I consider to be my new reality, but for now I’ll just do a quick summary of the facts.

A couple of months ago they found a small tumor on my liver. My doctor recommended chemotherapy, and I completed my fourth round this week. Chemo hasn’t gotten any easier, I’ve been pretty miserable each round during the chemo weeks, though I’ve felt reasonably good during the recovery weeks, even playing golf several times. But overall, going through chemo again has been very challenging (putting it mildly).

Today I had a CT scan to see how I’ve progressed. The good news is the tumor has shrunk and there are no new ones, so my doctor felt it was as good as I could have hoped.

On the other hand, he described to me today that I need to stop thinking in terms of being cured of cancer. Pancreatic cancer, he explained, almost never goes away entirely. It almost always reoccurs, and is usually present even when undetectable. I have to start thinking about managing cancer instead of being cured, and it is likely that I will be receiving treatment intermittently for the rest of my life. So he is recommending that I continue with chemo for now, probably 8-12 more rounds. If I am fortunate, I may again have long periods where I don’t have to be in treatment, such as the 19 months I had between my surgery in 2016 and this reappearance.

He suggested that we cut back on the dosages of the four chemicals that I receive by 20%, which should make it significantly easier. He also said I can lengthen the time between treatments to 3 or even 4 weeks, which also is very good news; having 2 or 3 good weeks for every bad week will make a big difference for me.

So, it was quite an impactful day. It is, as I described, a new reality. But I still look forward to being around for a long time, and making the most of every day.

As always I love hearing from you, at rabraham1@cox.net or by text or Messenger.