Chapter One: Even the Expert Was Shocked...But Dad Recovered First!

Monday, January 5, and Tuesday, January 6

My dad calls himself a hypochondriac, but I think doctors often fall into this category on some level. After all, they've seen a bit of everything from the time they first opened up a medical text or a cadaver. So when his friend Wendell said casually, a few weeks ago, "Gordon, you don't look so good. I think you might have cancer," my dad took it to heart. He scheduled tests--starting with his own techs at the imaging center where he works and ending with MRIs and CTs that produced magnificent pictures.

The enlargement of Dad's pancreatic main duct and the appearance of a small cyst were cause for alarm. However, on Monday, when the doctor in Charleston who has refined pancreatic scopes to an art saw the CDs with the detailed magnified images, he assured Dad that it was likely a benign cyst. The mucous from the cyst had probably caused the duct to swell. Still, since we were there and my dad's scope was scheduled for the following afternoon, all would proceed as planned. If for no other reason, Dad could be sure everything was fine.

Not one to waste an opportunity, Dad got a recommendation from the doc for dinner, and we celebrated the end of four hours of filling out forms, answering questions, and traipsing from room to room in the medical center. (I have to add that everyone at MUSC treated us kindly and were thorough and professional in all they did.) Hank's downtown was no disappointment, and we enjoyed every morsel from the seafood bisque to the bread to the shellfish to the dessert and coffee. It's fair to say we waddled back into the hotel. Dad had to stop eating at midnight, and by golly, he was going to make the most of his chance.

After a pre-dawn travel start, we were glad for some rest at Marriott R.I.--Ripley Point, where my dad turned out to be "Guest of the Day." Dad slept in on Tuesday while I enjoyed the breakfast buffet. After all, he couldn't eat, so why get up? We caught the shuttle to Ashley River Tower, where we'd spent the previous afternoon, and he was prepped to have a scope inserted through the mouth. We wouldn't know whether the other procedure would be necessary for a biopsy until Dr. Hawes finished with the scope.

I had barely settled in the waiting area when a nurse fetched me back to recovery, the same curtained room where Dad had waited to be taken for his scope. He was waking up but not yet alert. After he'd begun to talk a bit and had been back nearly an hour, the doc and his Fellow (one of four applicants of 700 who was accepted) came in to check on the patient and discuss their findings. All of us were equally shocked to learn that another tiny mass, not a cyst, existed at the opening of the main pancreatic duct.

Dr. Hawes said, "It's 13 millimeters, the smallest we have ever seen." That sounded good. After all, they've seen thousands here. "It is malignant." Not so good. "We did four pricks of a needle biopsy, and it is almost certainly adenocarcinoma." Not good at all.

I was listening and trying to absorb what they were saying and what it meant. My dad has cancer. He will need surgery, major surgery, because pancreatic is one of the worst types to have and it's a tricky part of the anatomy for operations. Dad had previously showed me his own research--types of pancreatic cancer, survival rates, cure rates, and so on.

On Monday, when things seemed okay, I calmly took notes. Now on Tuesday in this unreal atmosphere I couldn't follow and write at the same time. I asked the Fellow to draw a diagram, because my dad was repeating the same questions, due to the anethesia. Dr. Hawes took my notebook out of the younger man's hands and drew me the anomalous two-separately-ducted pancreas of my dad, explaining what everything was and circling what the surgery must remove. I wrote beside the diagrams my own notes as he continued. It seems the placement of the tumor and the swelling of the duct made things better. The superior mesenteric artery was nowhere close to the mass, another advantage.

The doc gently rubbed my dad's calf as he talked to him about this somewhat-terrifying news. My dad, in his usual matter-of-fact way, took everything in stride. But we were both shocked, as he had prepared before for worst-case-scenario, then had been relieved to think the chances were slim he had cancer. Now this diagnosis.

The Fellow rubbed my shoulder as my dad and Dr. Hawes continued to discuss options. After the docs left, we waited per instructions for a copy of the report, dismissal papers from the nurse, and then blessedly, an appointment with the surgeon assigned for the following morning.

Lisa, the nurse, warned my dad to rest and eat light. He called the whole experience--the testing and the coming ordeal of fighting cancer--"another adventure." After he phoned my mom and my brother to give them the news, we took a taxi to Charleston Crab House, where he ate she-crab soup, salad, crab dip, fried shrimp, and Key Lime Pie. My dad doesn't do anything halfway. He knows he's in the Lord's hands. He may try to take over a few times along the way, but he knows Who really controls things and does the healing.

God used his friend Wendell as a mouthpiece. Dad told him, "Your honorary MD diploma's on the way, along with an award for Diagnostician of the Year."

Chapter Two: Meeting the First Candidate