Update

Mike has seemed to pull through his rough patch! He has completed his first round of gemabraxine which consisted of 3 weeks on and 1 week off of treatment. His bowel obstruction has passed and has been overall feeling very well. We are gearing up for his 2nd round on this new treatment this Thursday. People often ask how many treatments does he have left? It's a tough question to answer... Along with the usual question of "how are you feeling?" To answer the first question... his treatments do not have an end date. He will continue treatment until there is a cure... He is what many would call a "lifer". It hard to answer when we get asked. It's not anyone's fault because people don't always understand the specifics of his disease. To anyone who has been affected by Pancreatic cancer it's a big deal to us that people don't know about the disease. It's a disease that remains in the shadows behind all the others. There's not enough research, knowledge, early detection, or treatments for the disease...

I'm going to take this as an opportunity to education others... 

• An estimated 48,960 Americans will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the U.S., and over 40,560 will die from the disease. 


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


• Pancreatic cancer is the 4th leading cause of cancer-related death in the United States.


• Pancreatic cancer has the highest mortality rate of all major cancers. 94% of pancreatic cancer patients will die within five years of diagnosis – only 7% will survive more than five years. 74% of patients die within the first year of diagnosis.


• The average life expectancy after diagnosis with metastatic disease is just three to six months.


• Treatment options for pancreatic cancer are limited. Surgical removal of the tumor is possible in less than 20% of patients diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Chemotherapy or chemotherapy together with radiation is typically offered to patients whose tumors cannot be removed surgically. 


• Pancreatic cancer is a leading cause of cancer death largely because there are no detection tools to diagnose the disease in its early stages when surgical removal of the tumor is still possible.


• The National Cancer Institute (NCI) spent an estimated $105.3 million on pancreatic cancer research in 2012. This represented a mere 1.8% of the NCI’s approximate $5.8 billion cancer research budget for that year.

The statistics are hard to swallow and difficult for us to comprehend. We try not to think about it and hope we will be one of the very few to break that statistic. It's hard to do when everything seems so white and black. One of the hardest things about cancer is having to live everyday despite knowing the outcome. We've met friends along the way that share this dreadful disease. We've also lost friends to the disease... It's devastating and leaves us with heavy hearts. I've been watching my good friend suffer the loss of her husband and It's heart wrenching. However we are each other's greatest support system. No one else gets it like we can get each other. One of the things we often talk about is we were one of the lucky ones to find such a great love. We were blessed with a relationship of communication, loyalty and honesty. So why our husbands? We will never know... no one can answer that for us. 

On a more positive note lately we have taken advantage of Mike feeling well. Mike and I went away to a resort on the ocean in CT this past weekend. We had a great time.

Today we took Ava to Water Country.

 

Ava has been having a hard time lately. She's getting older and realizing the severity of Mike's cancer. We have been making lots of fun memories with her which makes her feel a little better.

Mike and I have just started planning the 2nd Annual Michael Howell Softball Tournment on Saturday, September 5th. https://www.facebook.com/mhsoftballtournament 

Anyone who would like to put in a softball team please contact us at mike.stephanie.howell@gmail.com 

We are also looking for donations of supplies like soda, water, snacks, candy, and business sponsors. Please email me if you would like to make a donation. We greatly appreciate it.

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