From my online research, I did learn the answer to two key questions that were valuable to me: What is pancreatic cancer? What is Whipple surgery? I was like most people: We do not know very much about a disease until we or a loved one is diagnosed with that particular disease.
Read the following discussion with some care. It is pretty scary stuff (at least to me). I needed to understand what I was facing – but without viewing a YouTube video.
According to the Mayo Clinic:
Pancreatic cancer begins in the tissues of your pancreas — an organ in your abdomen that lies horizontally behind the lower part of your stomach. Your pancreas releases enzymes that aid digestion and hormones that help manage your blood sugar. Pancreatic cancer typically spreads rapidly to nearby organs. It is seldom detected early. Surgical resection is the only curative modality, but a mere 10% of patients are candidates for resection — and even then, the five-year survival rate after a curative resection is only 20 percent. 1
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center notes this:
The Whipple procedure is the most common type of surgery for pancreatic cancer. It is used to remove tumors that are confined to the head, or the right portion, of the pancreas. It is also known as a pancreatoduodenectomy. The surgeon removes the