Nancy Knisley

For the past month or so, my mom has been having some abdominal pain. But little did we know it was much more than that. It progressively worsened as she ate, drank and sometimes just working out. She would complain of bloating in the stomach and radiating pain into her back. At first we thought it was just acid reflux. She went  to our family doctor who recommended she try Nexium. After 2 weeks of taking the Nexium, her stomach pain did not cease. She went back to the doctor who then asked if she would like to see a Gastrointerologist to get to a deeper root as to what could be occurring in her stomach. At this point we thought maybe she's allergic to gluten and is experiencing Celiac Disease, or possibly IBS, or it could have just been hormones. That's truly what we all wanted to believe it was. The Gastrointerologist decided to perform an Endoscopy to get a better vision of what was going on. The Endoscopy came back negative for Chrones, Celiac, IBS and everything else in between. All that showed was a little bit of acid reflux. My mom had told me the next step was to have a CT scan performed to rule everything out. On September 21st, my mom had a CT scan performed, and later that evening, the scans were read showing a tumor on her pancreas. She was later diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in which we discovered the tumor had spread to her lymph nodes. This is all very new to our family, as it is for any family experiencing a form of cancer. The terminology is unfamiliar and at most times difficult to understand. 


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