Like being struck by lightning

According to the research, someone dies of pancreatic cancer every 17 minutes in the United States. The numbers also say that it is the fourth leading cause of cancer death in the United States. What's missing here is how difficult it is to diagnose and treat. Often a metastasis shows up somewhere else in the body and is then traced back to the pancreas. This is what happened with my mother-in-law. When the doctors finally figured out it was pancreatic cancer, she had only 12 weeks to live at that point. In my mom's case, she had several issues with her bile duct, and it was assumed that this blockage occurred from other issues.

Without going into further detail, the point of this is to increase the basic understanding of the most common symptoms of pancreatic cancer. This cancer is also known as the "silent disease," since early onset has very few visible symptoms.

Common Symptoms:

1. pain in upper abdomen or upper back
2. yellow skin and eyes, dark urine from jaundice
3. weakness
4. loss of appetite
5. nausea and vomiting
6. weight loss

The above symptoms are not naturally limited to pancreatic cancer, nor are they a sure sign of it. They can simply act as incentive for a physical exam and further investigation into the health of the pancreas. A six inch long gland stuck between the stomach and the spine, the pancreas is also surrounded by the liver, intestine and other organs. It produces insulin, pancreatic juices and other hormones. This vital organ serves us as it remains tucked away and nearly invisible to most scans or hands-on examinations. I write this and think about all the abdominal pain my mother endured and never really complained about.

Risk factors for pancreatic cancer:

• Age - most cases occur in those over the age of 60.
• smoking - smokers are two to three times more likely than non-smokers to develop pancreatic cancer.
• diabetes - this cancer occurs more often in those with diabetes.
• male gender - more men suffer from this cancer.
• African American - they are more likely than Asians, Hispanics or whites to get pancreatic cancer.
• family history - your risk triples if your mother, father, sister or brother had the disease. A family history of colon or ovarian cancer also increases the risk.
• chronic pancreatitis - some research shows that this painful condition of the pancreas may increase the risk of cancer of the pancreas.

Other studies show that prolonged exposure to certain chemicals, dry cleaning fluids for example, may also increase the risk. To wrap up, there is no way to ensure our health indefinitely. Dis-ease happens. With a bit more information, we may be able to, at the very least ask a few more questions and seek out a bit more information. Little harm is done when considering the alternative of not having as much information as we possibly can.

over and out