My Journey with Pancreatic Cancer

MY JOURNEY WITH PANCREATIC CANCER (Prahlad Das Singhal)

[WILL BE UPDATED REGULARLY]

I am sharing 'My Journey with Pancreatic Cancer' with a belief and a hope that it will encourage more people to do the same so that we have a range of experiences to help us all.

On 23rd August 2018, just after my return from the US, I went to Joshi Hospital (Pune) for a routine check-up, an ultra-sonographic test, of the Abdomen and pelvis. I had Dr Arvind Phadke's prescription and two bottles of water to drink to prepare for the test. When I reached the hospital, I collected the report of the blood test, done on the previous day. While waiting for the test, I met an old friend from Tata Motors, where we had worked together. His wife went for an ultra-sonography test first and then came my turn. I removed my shirt, was on the testbed and pushed my banyan way upwards, and folded my hands above the head.

The doctor asked me to turn to the left and she pressed the instrument against my abdomen and started dictating to her assistant the observations made by her on the screen in front of her. Then she asked me to lie on my back and at one point pressed the instrument at a point where I was already feeling heavy.

I had just returned from the US visiting relatives and even though I had plenty of Indian (spicy) food there in their homes and restaurants, the first thing I did on my return was to have my favorite Indian snacks and I felt the instrument exactly where I felt heavy because of the spicy snack.

The doctor found something there. She rang Dr Phadke who did not pick up the call but rang a few minutes later and when told about her finding, asked her to send me immediately after this test for a CT-Scan. I did not have all the money required for the CT-Scan so I paid them a part of the charges and the remaining later while collecting the report.

For CT-Scan, they gave me some liquid to drink and then did the test. I rested on a narrow stretcher; the stretcher moved to take my torso under the scanning sensors. Every time at the correct time they signalled me to hold my breath. The test was done on a few points on the torso and I went home. I came later to collect the report. In the evening I saw Dr Phadke and he asked me to do many more tests over the next four days and to meet him on 29th August which was the day I had an appointment with him which was fixed in June even before I went to the US.

He had, in June, asked me to do the blood test, Ultra-sonography and the echocardiogram and stress test for the heart. After completing the tests on the heart and the other tests prescribed by him after Ultra-sonography I visited him with my wife on the 29th of the month. He saw the reports, examined me clinically and rang Dr S. S. Ambikar, a Gastro-surgeon and fixed my appointment with him the next day.

{ANXIETY -In the meantime, I was searching for cancer of the pancreas on the Internet. I found that Pancreatic adenocarcinoma typically has a very poor prognosis with only 5% surviving after five years while Neuroendocrine cancer has a better prognosis with 65% surviving after five years. I told myself that at worst I may be suffering from Neuroendocrine cancer.}

Dr Ambikar had done surgery on me for Piles (Haemorrhoids) some eight / nine years back. The next day when Dr Ambikar saw the reports, he told me that I may have pancreatic cancer and that I should immediately go for a blood test for CA 19-9, which is a marker (test) for Pancreatic Cancer. He also said that pancreas is difficult to access as it is way behind the stomach and the other organs and its surgery is best done by a doctor who does pancreas-surgery fairly regularly. The next day I gave the blood sample for the test.

{PERSONAL - Here I must go back slightly. I have been working on a paper in Economics for the previous 22 years with Prof Vikas Chitre (previously Director of Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics and then Director at the Indian School of Political Economy) and, at the first sign of trouble ahead, I realized that, while the paper is nearly complete and he can do the remaining on his own, the calculations on the Excel sheet are in a mess and nobody can figure these out. So I informed him of the potential obstacle in my life and started cleaning up the calculation-sheets.}