By Sophie Tuan
When I was nine my grandpa was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. At the time I couldn’t really grasp what cancer was; I just thought he was extremely sick. At first, I thought it was like a cold and that my grandpa would recover, but soon his skin turned yellow as jaundice built up in his body, and he became weaker with each treatment that was supposed to be helping him. I later found out that stage four pancreatic cancer was on the varieties of cancers that had no cure.
Cancer is a tricky disease to treat, not only because there are so many variations but because you are essentially fighting your own body. Cancer cells are produced by the body when cells start to divide at an uncontrollably rapid rate as it starts to use up too much of a person’s energy— breaking down the body from the inside out.
The pancreas produces enzymes that processes the food people consume and regulates blood sugar throughout the body. When this vital organ is impacted or non-functioning the body progressively loses energy as its fuel (food) cannot be properly absorbed. This also results in a yellowish hue in a person’s skin (jaundice) as unprocessed nutrients build up under the skin, unabsorbed. Pancreatic cancer is one of the most difficult to treat because it is rarely ever caught in the early stages when it is still curable (stages one and two) due to the fact that no symptoms will occur until the cancer has spread to other vital organs such as the liver. As it progresses the disease becomes harder and harder to treat until it becomes terminal by stage four.
As I watched my grandfather slowly fade away, going from a strong and vibrant to frail and fatigued, I could tell he was in a lot of pain. Treatment after treatment—gene therapy, chemotherapy, and many more—continued to fail and the cancer continued to spread. There was no way to prevent the inevitable as we watched his rapid decline, knowing there was nothing else we could do.
Pancreatic cancer has a very low cure rate; as little as up to 10% of patients diagnosed ever live to be cancer free (source). Scientists are unsure of a specific cause for pancreatic cancer, but some suspect that it is genetic or can be aided by excessive drinking, and smoking tobacco. Some ways to reduce risk of pancreatic cancer is to live a healthy lifestyle, avoid smoking and drinking, and check with doctors about risk based on family history.