Dr. P had been making rounds daily, many times twice a day. Terri and I were very appreciative of Dr. P and his concern. Terri has a way to people’s hearts. I had worked in the medical field for nearly 20 years and I never witnessed a patient and Dr. say “I love you”. To this day, they hug and exchange “love yous”… His staff are the same and so genuine. We are blessed…
The pathology results were in about a week after surgery. Dr. P gently broke the news, cancer. He had explained he removed the tail of the pancreas and believed he had clean margins on the tumor. The news, of course, was devastating. Then as Terri often does, she was thankful. Thankful it was on the tail of the pancreas and not the head. Thankful the doctor had gotten all of the tumor and clean margins. Thankful she made it through surgery. Thankful Dr. P felt he could reverse the colostomy within a year. Understanding chemo would start in 2-3 months after she healed from surgery. This was so much to absorb. So much to take on, yet I remember Terri praying for the women in the next bed; praying the woman would feel better soon and get home to her family. This is Terri…This is who she is. I am so blessed she has chosen me to share this life.
Terri went through 6 months of gemcitabine chemotherapy. The regime was weekly; 3 week on, 1 week off. Oncologists and nurses are very cautious that patients do not put a lot of weight in CA 19-9 tumor markers because they fluctuate and are not as specific as other tumor markers. Her oncologist at the time, was drawing them monthly.
Terri had her colostomy reversed December of 2014, 11 months after the first surgery. The reversal was more complex than the original colostomy and Terri was in the hospital for several weeks. After recuperating from the reversal, the worst appeared behind us.
Terri had monthly appointments with the oncologist in Pittsburgh where she would continue to have monthly CA 19-9 tumor markers drawn, The numbers started to slowly increase. The oncologist cautioned her not to put a lot of emphasis on the numbers because the scans were coming back clean and there was no evidence of disease. Every time a scan was done, we held our breath until we received the results. The stress is indescribable. The tumor markers continued to rise…