April 1

So let's say there is something to that 'fight cancer' propaganda. If I could take cancer out back and 'fight' it I would. But more likely what is meant by that rather misleading bit of press is to keep a positive attitude about the whole process of being a lab rat in training while the medical and insurance rackets make ridiculous amounts of money off my suffering. Yes, keep smiling while you are shuffled through one procedure after another in the remote hope that a good attitude will have some magic influence on the ultimate outcome. I am facing chemotherapy. A process whereby they pour noxious fluids into a hole in my skin and hope that the combination of chemicals will inhibit the growth of the cancer cells. The side effects on me include horrible taste, loss of my hair and nausea exceeding almost any other sickness I have ever experienced. By the admission of my own oncologist, who is very experienced in this particular cancer, chemo is ineffective for pancreatic cancer. Its best hope is to delay the end only slightly. Right now my odds are about like this; 80% of all patients diagnosed with pancreatic cancer are dead within 6 months of diagnosis, 95% are gone after 5 years. I have Stage IV cancer, large masses and metastasis. I have zero chance of recovery. That is medical fact. There is no one percent, no slim chance, no glimmer of hope for me. They found it too late to operate, to mitigate, to do much of anything. But still I am going to go through the procedure, all six or more weeks of it, and even the aggressive chemo that may follow, in the off chance that I will beat the odds. My schedule is open, I don't have any pressing engagements otherwise, and I might just help find a way so that some later patient might actually have a chance.