MSI Press Blog

  I have read a number of new articles about advances in understanding pancreatic cancer in the last few weeks. Probably the best way to share the information is simply to link the  Pancreatic Cancer Signs Scaring Doctors Most (msn.com) Habits Secretly Increasing Your Pancreatic Cancer Risk, Say Physicians (msn.com) 13 Warning Signs of Pancreatic Cancer You Should Know, Doctors Say (bestlifeonline.com) Read more about Cancer Diary posts  HERE . Blog editor's note: As a memorial to Carl, and simply because it is truly needed, MSI Press is now hosting a web page,  Carl's Cancer Compendium , as a one-stop starting point for all things cancer, to make it easier for those with cancer to find answers to questions that can otherwise take hours to track down on the Internet and/or from professionals. The web page is in its infancy but expected to expand into robustness. To that end, it is expanded and updated weekly. As part of this effort, each week, on Monday, this blog will carry an

As with Carl, many people have "signs" of cancer that can be interpreted either as something else quite mild or dismissed entirely as just a bad day or maybe I ate something bad yesterday. Otherwise quite healthy people simply ignore them as an annoyance. (Before cancer, Carl was sick just one day in his life -- 50 years earlier he threw up, once, on the lawn, from unsuspectingly drinking stagnant water the day while carrying out his Forest Service employee duties, Seriously. Never again did he ever throw up even after three rounds of chemotherapy, but he died, healthy, from cancer!)  This is the insidious nature of cancer. Often, you just do not know you have it because the signs are so innocuous until it has taken over your body and is in the winner's circle -- and you have an incredibly difficult battle to get your body back -- and many people lose that battle every single day. This is especially true of "toilet information." Change in bowel movement is prett

  It seems that the most commonly shared experience by most cancer patients is that they miss the signs of cancer until often it is too late (stage 4 or 4) when discovered. That is because the signs do not leap out, generally. The following article does a good job of sharing the signs as well as providing a list of risk factors (if you have those, best to keep an eye out for signs) for one of the most deadly cancers: pancreatic cancer. Pancreatic cancer (msn.com) For other Cancer Diary posts, click  HERE . Blog editor's note: As a memorial to Carl, and simply because it is truly needed, MSI Press is now hosting a web page,  Carl's Cancer Compendium , as a one-stop starting point for all things cancer, to make it easier for those with cancer to find answers to questions that can otherwise take hours to track down on the Internet and/or from professionals. The CCC is expanded and updated weekly. As part of this effort, each week, on Monday, this blog will carry an informative, ca

  Looking back on Carl's cancer, our cats' cancers, and cancers among friends and family, we should have seen the signs, which would have led to better decisions and, likely, better outcomes. But they were small changes, slow changes that we got used to gradually without thinking back to what things used to be like.  One day, Carl forgot where the brake on the car was and pushed the gas pedal instead. Scary! Could happen to anyone, right? That was a few months before his late stage 4 metastatic cancer diagnosis, with hypercalcemia (which really messes up the brain). A small sign, but we missed it. His growing tendence to leave dishes to do until the next morning of plants to water the next day. Lazy, right? That started maybe a year out before the cancer diagnosis, likely about the time his organs were being attacked and overwhelming his immune system -- and likely his energy. A small sign, but we missed it. There were more. If we even noticed them, we dismissed them all as  ag

We love grilling. Carl had quite a reputation for grilling hamburgers, hot dogs, salmon, and more, a tradition carried on by his children (son Shawn in the picture) and grandchildren (granddaughter Neela in the picture). Friends, family, and neighbors always loved coming by for Carl's BBQs.  Then, Carl fell and was diagnosed with stage 4 Cancer of Unknown Primary , which is an aggressive cancer, leaving little time to cope with rapid changes , let alone grilling or any kind of final fun. His oncologist thought that the primary probably was in the GI tract. Carl had skipped his colonoscopy (no one should ever do that). He was treated with a generic mix of chemicals as well as a mixture for colorectal cancer. It was too late! What we never realized during all those years of grilling was the potential connection between grilling and cancer. Had we known that, maybe Carl would have grilled less or differently. Perhaps he would have been more diligent about getting his colonoscopy. By

  One of the existential questions that we faced when Carl was diagnosed with terminal cancer in four organs, although it was not evident as a question until after Carl died, was whether we should focus on living (enjoying the life that was left) or staying alive (fighting death). For one reason another, in part waves of crises, we kept being pushed to focus on staying alive. We planned to do something special, even if small, every Monday--an attempt at living, and, darn it, every single Monday for those last five months of Carl's life, he ended up in the ER not because of doing something special but before we could do something special. Five months passed, and as I look back it, we were focused exclusively on staying alive. I wish we could have focused on living.  I was very taken with one young wife, who called herself Widow in Waiting on X, who somehow did manage to focus on living. Her husband was in the hospital more often than not. her posts on X were focused on living.  We