D-Day: 5/13/12

Today is Mother's Day. Four years ago my sister was celebrating her first Mother's Day. Her little girl Alexa was about to celebrate her first birthday in May as well. Andrea was also recovering from major surgery. Just a few weeks prior to these milestone occasions for a new mother, Andrea had a portion of her pancreas removed. She had suffered multiple acute pancreatitis attacks throughout the year prior to her distal pancreatectomy in April 2008. A small tumor, thought to be benign, was the reason behind the surgery. The theory was... remove the bad part of the pancreas and live with the good part. This is a relatively common surgery with much success and Andrea's surgery was performed by one of the best surgeons in the world... well he's known for his talent as a surgeon, not for his bedside manner, but I'll get to that later. Once the body and tail of the pancreas was removed from my sister, it was sent to Johns Hopkins for pathology...

May 13th 

Andrea calls me around lunch time. The pathology results are in. Her surgeon called her... on the phone... to tell her she had acinor cell carcinoma and he wanted to remove the remainder of her pancreas.  She was upset, but not crying. She tells me that she really didn't want to go through that surgery. That would mean she would have another major surgery in the following month and she would be insulin dependent for the rest of her life. I had to ask the obvious question (knowing what carcinoma means). "Is it cancer?" She says "no, he never said it was cancer." Something tells me that this wasn't sitting right with my sister because she's a smart girl. If I knew what carcinoma meant, she would figure it out quickly. 3:00pm: I'm sitting in my doctor's office waiting for a routine exam. My cell phone rings... it's Andrea. This time she's sobbing. She can barely speak...

"It's cancer."


My heart sinks. I don't know what to say. And... I lose signal, the call is dropped. Just then, my doctor enters the exam room and I am bawling. I explain to her what I just heard from Andrea. She tries her best to comfort me. She tries to put my mind at ease with her expertise as an endocrinologist, but I just wanted to get out of there... and fast. I get in my car and call her back. She's now making the phone calls to our family. She says she'll call me back. I'm now on the road, on my way into work. I don't know what to do. So I get off the highway and pull into a Bob Evans parking lot. I sit. I don't know where to go or what to do. I call my husband and tell him the news. I call my manager at work to say that I may not make it there. I call a co-worker to tell him to pass the news along to everyone at work before I get there because every time I talk to someone, I cry. I'm still sitting in the parking lot. Do I drive to work? Do I drive home? Do I drive to Andrea's house?

I don't know what to do. I just sit.

Finally, my mind kicks back into gear. I decide to go to work. If I go home, I'll just cry all night. I can't go to Andrea's house because she needs this time with her husband. So, I call my manager back and tell him that I'm going to take a personal day the next day to spend time with Andrea. He's very understanding and approves the day off. While I'm driving to work Andrea calls me back. She catches me crying. "Are you crying?" She says. "You can't cry! You're the strong one!!" At this point, I laugh. And try my best to be strong for her. I don't remember the details of the conversation after that. Luckily, I was on a training shift at  work that day. I think I did nothing but talk on the phone with my sister, on and off, all night. My friends at work did their best to cheer me up that night. They didn't ask questions, but I knew they knew. They took me out to dinner, Qdoba, their treat. I think of that night and appreciate what those guys did for me.

May 14th

I drive to Andrea's house. My mom is there, as usual, to help Andrea with Alexa. Andrea and I went out to Panera Bread for lunch, so we can talk. We talked about a lot of things at lunch that day. She was very angry with her surgeon. First, for telling her the diagnosis over the phone. Second, for never using the word "cancer." Third, for getting her cancer diagnosis from his nurse when she called his office to get more information. I remember how upset she was when she described look on her husband's face when he found out she had cancer. That made her cry. I stayed strong. Despite the terrible news, we had a nice lunch. We even did a  little clothes shopping while we were out. We played "hide from Andrea's old roommate we don't want to get stuck talking to" in Ann Taylor. We had a lot of laughs that day as well. I'm so glad I spent that day with her. That day is one of the fondest memories I have of my sister.

We had many days like that in the years following her "D-Day." I wish we had more of them.

Lessons Learned

Many of us close to Andrea received a book from her about a year after her diagnosis. She found this book inspiring when she needed inspiration the most. She gave me a copy to give to my friend whose mother was battling breast cancer. Andrea felt the author's message was so important to share with anyone battling cancer. I just found my copy recently. I keep it on my nightstand. I read excerpts from the book from time to time. The book is "There's No Place Like Hope" by Vickie Girard. She gives invaluable advice in this book. Most notably, how not to tell a person they have cancer. Andrea never said this, but every doctor needs to read this book. Doctors can't forget that the person and the disease need the best care possible. The doctor is undeniably giving their patient the most devastating news of their lives. It may be routine for a doctor to diagnose a patient, but it is not routine for the patient to receive the diagnosis of cancer.

And as Andrea always believed, a diagnosis is not a death sentence. Give the person the tools and information to fight and beat the odds.

Give them hope!