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I am an 11 year survivor of pancreatic cancer. I was double lucky in that it was a neuroendocrine tumor and it was diagnosed early. I have had chronic pain in my lower right abdomen for years. My doctor had me get a CT scan and after the scan he called and told me that there was nothing on the scan that looked like it would cause the pain. But, it did show a mass in my pancreas. They did a needle biopsy of the tumor and it was malignant.

They set me up with an appointment with an oncologist who happened to be the same doctor that Randy Pausch (The Last Lecture) had. In the two weeks that I waited to see him I made the mistake of Googling pancreatic cancer. I was pretty sure I would be dead in less than a year.

I had robot assisted laparoscopic surgery and it saved my life. I almost died from the complications of the surgery. I got double pneumonia and went into respiratory arrest and it took a long time to recover but I did survive. They told me prior to the surgery that if it wasn’t successful I could expect to live seven years. Pretty much how long Steve Jobs lasted.