Lori Cashman

Written by Annie Cashman

During the week of March 26th, 2018. Lori went in to the doctor because she was experiencing pain in her stomach. It was uncomfortable, but she went in to the doctor as she and Tom were planning a 10 day trip to Hershey to see Reid, Stef and Maggie. She wasn't overly concerned about what she was experiencing, but wanted to get checked out. Thankfully, the doctor she saw provided a very through exam that included a CT and GI scope as he felt her symptoms weren't normal.  Lori, being the carefree fun gal she is pushed back on getting the full work up as she was heading out of town and she would take care of all of it when she returned. The doctor wasn't letting her go without the full exam. When the CT came back the radiologist saw a tumor at the tail of her Pancreas. "WHAT! NO WAY, THAT CAN"T BE RIGHT," she said to her doc.
The doctors immediately referred her to MAYO and her 10 day trip to Reid, Stef and Maggie was shortened to a 3 day quick visit and when she returned she would undergo multiple tests. Over the past two weeks and after multiple scans, scopes, biopsy and consultations, last Tuesday afternoon the diagnosis of Adenocarcinoma of the Pancreas has been confirmed. We can all look up what that means in google, mayo clinic.com webmd and as my brilliant husband(Brad) always says, we are now all doctors behind our computer screens :)   But on this site we are going to focus on the positive not on statistics. Her team at MAYO, yes a team of people, have confirmed through multiple tests that this has been caught relatively early and there are not any other signs of cancer in other parts of her body.  For this type of cancer that is VERY VERY RARE to catch it early. As Lori would say chalk this one up in the plus column!!
 Starting this week(4.8.2018) she will start very aggressive chemotherapy, followed by radiation and once her tumor shrinks, and it will shrink...she will undergo surgery for removal.