On August 5, 2022, I went to see a new doctor for a yearly check-up.
Gregory Prokopowicz had just arrived from Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.
I was among his first patients.
“Cancer can paralyze you with fear—both the fear there is no hope and the fear of talking about it.”
I was 75 and felt great.
Im a writer and a poker player.
Id just gotten back from Las Vegas where Id come in second in a big tournament.
“My case is nothing short of miraculous. At this writing, I have lived almost two years beyond the eight months I was given.”
My sixth novel,Bluff, was going to be made into a movie.
I had no symptoms.
But just to be cautious he sent me for a routine renal ultrasound.
What he said next made me wonder if the ghost was me.
Your kidneys are fine, he said.
However, theres a very large mass floating over your other organs.
We have no idea what it is.
I blurted out to take the edge off my terror.
After more scans and an endoscopy at Hopkins, I was told I had pancreatic cancer.
But now I could think of nothing else.
The tumor was large and had to be taken out immediately.
Moby measured 16 centimeters (6.3 inches).
Amazingly, no other organs were affected.
The lymph nodes were clear.
It has been documentedmainly in children, but in onlyabout 30 adults.
I returned home feeling like Id dodged not just a bullet but a cannon ball.
One month later I went back to Hopkins to discuss the results of a postoperative CT scan.
My husband and I met Dr. Johnston with his team in his office.
My GP, Dr. Prokopowicz, was on the phone listening in.
Though Dr. Johnston greeted me warmly, I sensed a shift in his normally sunny disposition.
The full impact of this revelation did not hit me right away.
What does that mean?
Unfortunately, it means you have metastatic pancreatic cancer.
And without treatment, you have roughly eight months to live.
If learning I had cancer was an earthquake, this aftershock was a tidal wave.
What treatment could I have?
So now my hopeful outlook on life had changed to a grim outlook on death.
I got home and googled metastatic pancreatic cancer.
Dr. Google was even less optimistic than Dr. Johnston.
My next stop was a consultation with an oncologist.
This doctor told me that there was only one treatment for metastatic pancreatic cancer: chemotherapy.
Id heard horror stories about those drugs.
But I also had several friends whod survived their cancers by having chemo.
The thing was, despite the pain of recovering from a big operation, I still felt remarkably well.
I told him, I really dont want to have chemo.
I dont want to feel bad until I die.
I want to feel good until I die.
I dont think a couple of months will make much difference, he said.
After your travels well stick a port in you and start chemo if you change your mind.
It was a quick visit.
I decided I was just going to live, live, live until I died.
I had lived a fascinating, privileged life.
Im a Christian, though non-practicing.
I was resigned to my fate and prayed with the thought: Lord, Thy will be done.
Not that I stopped looking for salvation.
I talked to a couple of friends who had connections at other great cancer hospitals.
One of them put me in touch with a famous oncologist in New York.
We had a wonderful phone conversation.
However, when I assured him I was not having chemo, I never heard from him again.
For one thing I wanted people to understand that cancer is not a shameful or shadowy disease.
I even showed some hardy souls the pictures of Moby I had on my iPhone.
Literally everyone gasped in horror and disbelief at the sight of this alien thing.
I found myself taking a perverse pride in him.
I wasnt maudlin about it, but Marie was almost indignant at the news.
Youre not going to die on my watch!
Honey, I love you.
But, trust me, Im a hopeless case.
I know a doctor who only takes hopeless cases, she shot back.
He led the firstreportedremoval and re-implantation of six organs to excise a hard-to-reach abdominal tumor.
He got back to her immediately, and said he was well acquainted with my rare pancreatoblastoma.
He agreed to take my hopeless case.
Dr. Kato is a slim, fit man with a handsome face and calm dark eyes.
He was in his surgical scrubs scheduled to operate that morning.
Yet he spent over an hour with me; his voice was soft and thoughtful as explained my situation.
This meant I still had some time.
However, if the CT level shot up, that would mean the cancer was spreading rapidly.
He showed me a scan of my liver and pointed out the metastases on the two lobes.
It was only a matter of time before these mets would take over my liver and kill me.
We discussed my optionschemo, wait and seeand then he asked, has anyone suggested Y-90?"
Marie and Jim and I left Dr. Katos office practically in tears.
Was there a glimmer of hope after all?
Dr. Kato now placed me in the hands of the interventional radiology department and David Sperling.
Because I had mets on two lobes, I would require four sessions in all.
In the first session, a catheter is inserted into the liver artery through the groin.
Through angiography the arteries fueling the metastases are mapped.
In the second session, a catheter is inserted into the wrist.
Y-90 aims to kill them by cutting off their blood supply.
On May 26, 2023, I met Dr. Sperling in person.
I lay on a table in a large operating room at Columbia Presbyterian.
Dr. Sperling is a meticulous man with the eyes of an eagle and a no-nonsense air.
He worked quickly and confidently.
The procedure took an hour and a half.
I went out for dinner that night.
That procedure took about an hour.
I was slightly nauseous afterward but otherwise had no side effects.
After each Dr. Sperling and I looked at MRI pictures of my liver on a computer.
He was encouraged by what he saw.
Y-90 appeared to be working.
The mets were dying.
Since my first mapping I have gotten to know Dr. Sperling.
He is a star in his field of Interventional Radiology.
He has a wonderful sense of humor.
He loves dogs as much as I do.
He loves Fantasy Football the way I love poker.
He is also a champion gamer.
I could see how much he enjoyed zapping those mets.
After my treatments were over, the key question was whether Yttrium-90 would work on a rarepancreatoblastoma.
I went to Vegas to play in the World Series of Poker.
Poker was the one thing that got my mind off my eight months to live diagnosis.
When I returned from Vegas, I went up to Columbia Presbyterian for another MRI.
Once again, with me at his side, Dr. Sperling examined the results of the scan.
The treatment had worked!
It was a true miracle.
A subsequent MRI revealed I had another metastasis on my liver.
Dr. Sperling treated me again.
I have now survived almost two years beyond anyones expectations.
Interventional radiology using Y-90 treated my liver metastases from the inside out.
Yet chemo remains the first choice of oncologists in cases of metastatic disease.
Y-90 may then be used as a last resort if the chemo has failed to eradicate the liver mets.
My treatment was only good for the liver.
Perhaps because chemo has become the standard first option, I was never offered Y-90 as an alternative.
Cancer can paralyze you with fearboth the fear there is no hope and the fear of talking about it.
My advice is to broadcast your disease.
Tell anyone who will listen what kind of cancer you have.
Knock on every medical door.
Dont take only this way for an answer.
My case is nothing short of miraculous.
At this writing, I have lived almost two years beyond the eight months I was given.
In June I went out to Las Vegas and played in the World Series of Poker.
I had no luck with the cards.
But the real luck was being there at all.
Just being alive is lucky!
The small met on my liver was zapped again.
The CT has remained low and stable.
I may even live to see the movie based onBluffwhich is in the works.
The point is to keep kicking the can down the road.
I used to get up every morning wondering how and when I would die.
Now I have PTSD thinking I might be around for a while.
I can live with that.
