Pancreatic Cancer Princess...put my tiara on to fight: January 2015

Saturday, January 10, 2015

End of life thoughts...

For those of you that have made your funeral/memorial service arrangements, did you make special provisions to make sure there were certain people who would NOT be welcome at your memorial?

I mean, if they choose NOT to be there for you while you're living, WHY would you want them to be at your memorial service? I know I don't want them there.

Just curious of what others thought...

Love you more <3

Pancreatic Cancer Facts 101

There are 2 kinds of pancreatic cancer: Adenocarcinoma and Neuroendocrine.

95% of pancreatic cancers are adenocarcinoma. It is the most deadly of the two with a 5 year survival rate of 6%

Neuroendocrine 5 year survival rate is 50-80%

Famous people who have died from Pancreatic Cancer:

Adenocarcinoma:

Patrick Swayze

Benjamin Orr

Michael Landon

Fred Gwynne

Pavarotti

Bonnie Franklin

Henry Mancini

Jack Benny

Sally Ride

Neuroendocrine:

Steve Jobs

Pancreatic cancer is anticipated to move from the fourth to the second leading cause of cancer death in the U.S. by 2020, and possibly as early 2015.

Pancreatic cancer has the highest mortality rate of all major cancers. 94% of pancreatic cancer patients will die within 5 years of diagnosis - only 6% will survive more than 5 years. 74% of patients die within the first year of diagnosis.

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) spent an estimated $97.1 million on pancreatic cancer research in 2010. This represented a mere 2% of the NCI's approximate $5 BILLION cancer research budget for that year. In the same year, $631 million was spent on breast cancer research and $300 million on prostate cancer research. The relative 5 year survival rates for breast cancer is now 89% and for prostate cancer it is 99.2%.

HUGE DISCREPANCY! WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?!?

Pancreatic cancer is one of the few cancers for which survival has not improved substantially over nearyly 40 years.