November is Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month

It's Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month and I hope to do just that, raise awareness. Everyone is aware of breast cancer and it seems like everyone has combined their efforts against breast cancer and now my hope is that the world can combine those same forces to fight Pancreatic Cancer.

Pancreatic cancer has the lowest relative survival rate of all the cancers tracked by both the American Cancer Society
and the National Cancer Institute; pancreatic cancer is the only one with a five-year relative survival rate in the single digits at just six percent.

You can change that. Sign up today to be a Volunteer for Progress. Join your friends, family and neighbors to know, fight and end this deadly disease.

People need to know how deadly this terrible disease is. I honestly thought after my Dad's surgery that he would be one of those 6%. I think maybe that may be part of the reason that I'm taking this so hard. People used to tell me that I'm too negative but I've always seen myself as realistic. And this time I was staying as positive as I possibly could be only to end up with the worst possible outcome. I didn't want to admit to myself that I could lose him forever. And now that I have I guess I'm a little lost inside. I think it helps knowing that I have pretty much the same personality as him so he will always be with me, but I have wanted nothing more than to just have a conversation with him these past couple of weeks. I want to watch a Blackhawks game with him and talk hockey, or tell him that I love him.

You can be a hero in the fight again pancreatic cancer and help people everywhere know it, fight it, and end it.

RIP Dad, I miss you every day

It has been 110 days since my Dad died. 110 days and I feel just as sad as I did 109 days ago. I still spend most night crying. I still think that it' not fair. And most of all I still just want my dad back.

He died on June 23rd after battling Pancreatic Cancer. He was diagnosed with cancer in 2009. He had a whipple procedure done and went through rounds of Chemotherapy and Radiation. He was healthy for an entire year after that. I truly believed that he would be one of the 6% that would defeat this terrible disease. But he started feeling ill again in March of this year (2011). We would later find out that his cancer was back and that it was in his liver and that this time it was inoperable. I continued to stay positive because I knew how strong my dad was and I hoped that this round of Chemo would work. But then there the setbacks and the complications. He was admitted to the ICU on Father's Day. Father's Day. We thought he was severely dehydrated but he had Sepsis. Two days later our oncologist told us that the chemo had absolutely no effect at all. And that is when my world came crashing down. The horrible realization that my dad was indeed going to die and at that point we were just counting down the days. After that the doctors would attempt to get him stable enough to be transported to a hospice center. He died hours after being extubated and never made it to the hospice center.

I miss my dad more than words can even say. He was only 53. He was a lifelong Chicago Blackhawks fan and now that hockey season has started there is a huge part missing. We would talk hockey all the time. Anything I didn't know about a team or it's players he would know and tell me all about it. We had some quality bonding time during hockey season. Even when I was away at school we would talk about how my school's hockey team was doing. It just kills me that I can't go downstairs and talk to him about the Hawks and the new players and the fact that the Jets are back and everything. I get flooded with emotions of sadness and anger. Everyone tells me to remember the good times, I do. But remembering the good times still makes me cry because I know that there won't be any more. I know one day I will be able to look back and smile and laugh but I am far from that point. So I am going to get this blog going again and it will be dedicated to my dad and Pancreatic Cancer Awareness and my grieving process.