Running the marathon of my life

I ran my first Los Angeles marathon in 1999. I just wanted to try it at least once. My son who was in the Marines, encouraged me to run it. My family was there that day to watch me cross the finish line, including my father. He had an accident in November of that year and died. The stresses of life kept happening so I continued to run and I completed the Los Angeles Marathon for the next nine years.
I dedicated every marathon to the servicemen and servicewomen. I would think about them and what they went through. I also dedicated it to others who needed prayer.

On Feb. 10, 2012, I was admitted to the hospital thinking I was going to have a gallstone removed. But when the doctor went over my CT scan with me he said there was a mass on the pancreas. I knew that was serious. I picked up my phone and made some calls then, I logged on to Facebook, and the first thing I posted was: “Look back and thank God. Look forward and trust God. Look around and serve God. Look within and find God.” Also: “Do not be afraid, I am with you always.”

I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer on Feb. 11, 2012. The doctors were optimistic because the cancer was caught early. They gave me a 90 percent chance that it could be removed because it was at the head of the pancreas and it was only 1 centimeter in size.

I had surgery (called a Whipple procedure) on Feb. 14. Oddly, that was on my father’s birthday. He would have been 86 years old. I know he was watching over me. The doctors aborted the Whipple procedure because when they opened me up they found that the cancer had attached itself to the mesenteric vein, one of the veins that goes directly to the heart. At that point, the doctors couldn’t do anything because if they even nicked the vein I would have bled to death on the table. They had to close me back up. My family was then told I had six months to a year to live as there is no cure for pancreatic cancer.

One of the doctors where I work at Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo told me to go to a cancer center, one that specializes in pancreatic cancer, so I went to UCLA. At UCLA, they told me I would need months of chemo. I had a total of nine months, six months of which was aggressive chemo. When I started that aggressive chemo, I was told I would be knocked off my feet because I was going to become very sick, that I would lose all my hair in one week, and if I needed they would send a nurse to my home. Thank God, none of that happened.

I had chemo every other Tuesday, for eight hours. I would then be hooked up to a pump via my Port-A-Cath, which is a catheter the width (?) of a nickel inserted underneath my skin with a thin tube that goes straight to my heart, for the next two days which administered continuous chemo.

I did get sick and my hair thinned out. I also had some pretty bad side effects, one being very high intolerance to cold. I always needed to be bundled up and I couldn’t drink anything cold. I also had a horrible metallic taste in my mouth. But during that time, I continued to walk and hike, and even went skydiving. I stayed strong in my faith and kept a very positive attitude.

I compared my journey to a marathon. I think all those marathons helped me physically and mentally. God gives you what you need when you need it.

Five months after that aborted Whipple procedure—during which they cut me open from the right side of my lower rib up to above my heart back to the lower rib on my left side—I went back to work, even in the middle of my chemo.

I had my ups and downs with my treatments. Sometimes there was shrinkage in the tumor during the chemo, and sometimes there wasn’t. They did the final CT in December to see if the tumor had shrunk enough for surgery. On Jan. 10, 2013, I was given the good news that I was going to have Whipple procedure again.

On Jan. 29, I had a successful procedure, a surgery specifically for pancreatic cancer, and in March I ran the last mile of the L.A. Marathon with Julie Weiss, the well-known Marathon Goddess, who was completing the last of her 52 marathons in 52 weeks. Julie dedicated each mile of her marathons to people who had lost their battle to the very deadly pancreatic cancer and dedicated the full marathons to people fighting pancreatic cancer and to survivors. She dedicated her last marathon, which coincidentally was the Los Angeles Marathon, to me.

Who would have thought that 13 years after running my first marathon, someone like Julie would dedicate her run in the L.A. Marathon to me? When I ran that last mile with her it was very emotionally meaningful for me.

My goal for next March, 2014, is to run the whole marathon. That will be marathon No. 11 for me.