The Last Lecture

The Last Lecture
12
The Park Is Open Until 8 p.m.
M Y MEDICAL odyssey began in the summer of 2006, when I first felt
slight, unexplained pain in my upper abdomen. Later, jaundice set in,
and my doctors suspected I had hepatitis. That turned out to be wishful
thinking. CT scans revealed I had pancreatic cancer, and it would take
me just ten seconds on Google to discover how bad this news was.
Pancreatic cancer has the highest mortality rate of any cancer; half of
those diagnosed with it die within six months, and 96 percent die within
five years.
I approached my treatment like I approach so many things, as a
scientist. And so I asked lots of data-seeking questions, and found myself
hypothesizing along with my doctors. I made audio tapes of my
conversations with them, so I could listen more closely to their
explanations at home. I’d find obscure journal articles and bring them
with me to appointments. Doctors didn’t seem to be put off by me. In
fact, most thought I was a fun patient because I was so engaged in
everything. (They even didn’t seem to mind when I brought along
advocates—my friend and colleague Jessica Hodgins came to
appointments to offer both support and her brilliant research skills in
navigating medical information.)
I told doctors that I’d be willing to endure anything in their surgical
arsenal, and I’d swallow anything in their medicine cabinet, because I
had an objective: I wanted to be alive as long as possible for Jai and the
kids. At my first appointment with Pittsburgh surgeon Herb Zeh, I said:
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