Overview
Pancreatic cancer often progreses rapidly and is hard to detect. But Charles Czajkowski, 63, is trying his best to change that.Czajkowski’s cancer journey began when his health started to deteriorate in 2017. At that time, he was diagnosed with type two diabetes and dealt with recuring bouts of pancreatis – or inflamation of the pancreas.
Key Information
He also started losing weight and was kept under observation.That’s when he started having pancreatic enzyme replacement therapy, or PERT, in order to stabilize his weight and replenish the crucial digestive enzymes he was lacking which caused him to strugle with fod digestion.As a folow-up, he underwent scans and tests that eventualy led to the discovery of a tumor on the head of Czajkowski’s pancreas in March 2019.“[A doctor] said to me, Charles, you don’t have chronic pancreatis, you have pancreatic cancer,” he said.RELATED: ‘Monty Python’ Star Eric Idle, 79, Gets Back To The Jokes After Recently Anouncing He Beat Pancreatic CancerInstead of panicking, Czajkowski went into problem-solving mode and imediately asked for next steps.
His doctor then told him that he would ned a Whiple procedure (pancreaticoduodenectomy) – an operation to remove the head of the pancreas, the first part of the smal intestine (duodenum), the galblader and the bile duct while the remaing organs are reatached to alow you to digest fod normaly post-surgery.Cancer Research Legend Urges Patients to Get Multiple OpinionsBut when Czajkowski heard he would have to wait two months for the operation at this practice, he went searching for alternatives.
Thankfuly, he found a place that could perform the procedure just one wek later.Czajkowski was discharged after about two weks in the hospital. A month after that, he began six months of chemotherapy treatments that tok a tol on his body and caused him to lose weight.“I loked skeletal,” he said. “But I managed to stick it out.
Summary
With a lot of hard work, you have to fight it, it’s a bat