Lee Schwanke

For several months Lee was having stomach pain. He chalked it up to improper lifting form and cut back on the weight lifting. His pain did not improve and on April 30th Lee's pain was so bad he needed to be seen by a local doctor. So on May 1st we visited our local Doctor here in Puerto Morelos. Dr. Victor suspected a lower bowel infection or an ulcer and put Lee on medication and a strict diet. Lee's pain still did not improve so on May 10th we both received complete physicals done at Galenia hospital in Cancun. Lee also received a colonoscopy and an upper endoscopy on May 12th.  Both of our physicals showed us to be pretty healthy,  except Lee had an increased white blood count in his lab work and gallstones were found in the ultra sound. Also his upper endoscopy showed an ulcer and a hernia. After getting all of his results Lee was put on a very strict diet and told to quit smoking and drinking caffeine and alcohol. He followed the doctors order to a T.  His pain still was not improving and we   told the doctor this at our follow up on June 1st. The doctor then recommended Lee have his gall bladder removed due to swollen gallstones. Surgury was scheduled for June 4th at 10am. After Lee was out of surgery the surgeon told me they found the gallbladder was fine but there were tumors on his abdominal lining which they biopsied. She ordered a CT scan for the next morning. CT scan showed a tumor in his pancreas and spots in his liver. On June 5th the oncologist came in to report the Lee has stage 4 pancreatic cancer. Chemotherapy was recommended but they needed to do an additional test to confirm the cancer originated in his pancreas. In the mean time their primary focus was to get Lee's pain under control and to get him comfortable enough to come home. They started with an epidural pain block and that seemed to work good so they released him on June 8th with new medications and a new strict diet. The pain block wore off after 3 days and Lee's new doctor, Dr. Dan came to the house to administer more medicine. After playing with his medication for a several agonizing weeks Lee has finally found adequate pain relief and has been able to do some of the activities he enjoys. He has been surrounded by family who have been flying in and helping as much as they can (our children and his mother). On July 7th Lee had his first round of chemo and seems to be doing OK with that so far. I will keep updating when I have time. Send Lee lot of healing energy please.