Dale's Story: bile duct cancer, other cancers

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About Dale

My name is Dale and I live in Eureka, California, it's northern California right on the ocean in the middle of the redwoods, a very beautiful place to live. I'll tell you a little bit about myself. I am 39 years old, I'm a single father of two kids, I have a 10-year-old son and a 12-year-old daughter. My passion right now is I coach youth football, and this is my 13th different team coaching. I've coached currently football, I've coached basketball, baseball, soccer, pretty much anything that any of my kids are involved in except for the cheerleading for my daughter. I don't really cheerlead very well. Let me see what else. I own an insurance agency, I carry one of the major insurers in the country. I've been doing insurance for 13 1/2 years. Am lucky to have a job like this with the situation that I've been in. I'm a ten-month cancer survivor. I was diagnosed last September of 1999 with bile duct cancer, which most folks refer to as "pancreatic duct cancer". Your bile duct runs for your liver, your gall bladder is attached to it, it runs down into your pancreas and empties into your intestine and your stomach.

It takes all kinds

I want to tell you a little bit about my family history. Not only have I become a cancer survivor but I'm a caretaker, too. I've taken care of several family members and I want to tell you a little bit about cancer people and about my family. There's basically two types of cancer people that I can figure out, over the years. There are ones that feel very guilty about what they've done to their family members, and they throw up these big walls, and they don't wanna talk about it. And they'll even make you mad, sometimes on purpose, just to get distance between you and them, because they feel terrible, and they feel guilty inside. Most folks don't realize that they're torturing themselves about what they've done to the people around them. So don't be too hard on the cancer patient that you feel is withdrawn. Sometimes they feel they're doing you a favor, okay?

Then there's the other kind of cancer patient, survivor, who wants to talk about it, who appreciates it when people ask them about it. It's good therapy. I'm one of those kinds of people. I like to talk about my cancer situation. I figure I got lucky. They tell me I'm lucky. Sometimes I fail to see how lucky I am, but, they got my cancer fairly early. If I could get somebody to realize what they're going through and get them to the doctor, I can have one person hear me, then I'm happy about it. It's great therapy for me. So I like to talk about it.

My history

So let me tell you a little more about it. When I was a boy growing up here in Eureka, my brother had a tumor in his arm. I was probably about ten years old when he had this tumor in his arm and he had a major surgery and it was cut out of his bone. It was a tumor, it was benign, but a non-growing tumor, and malignancy a malignant tumor of course would be a growth that had a tendency to spread, and usually very little they can do about a lot of malignancies. This was benign. And there was a big scar, weak bone and I never really thought much about cancer after that. When I got into high school in the seventies, late seventies, my grandmother had cancer, and I remember my mother talking about the fact that grandma had cancer, and she had breast cancer. It was the first I'd ever thought about it because she had what was called a double mastectomy, and in a mastectomy they cut off both her breasts. And it wasn't until I was an adult that I thought about how painful that must have been, how painful it must be for women to go through a mastectomy. We think about it from an emotional point of view, a lot of time, that it's sure gonna be an adjustment, but from a pure physical point of view, that has to be extremely painful. At the time I thought about cancer a little bit back then, it had spread into her stomach and they ended up doing a surgery on her stomach, put in some wire mesh, it was explained to me "like a screen door" in her stomach lining. Again, as an adult I think how painful it must have been what she was going through for this. But she eventually died from the cancer. It had spread all over. And grandma died. I thought about cancer. I didn't think, now that I look back on it, it was perplexing. I was just starting to understand about cancer. I wasn't there with her, I did not see her physically pass away and see the physical stuff. It's only now that I can imagine what she must have went through. She lived in Utah and I lived in California.

In 1987 my mother was 49 years old and she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and I'm a mama's boy and I always was a mama's boy, I was the youngest, fifth kid, five kids, I'm the youngest kid. Mom had ovarian cancer and for two years she put up a good fight. She went through her chemotherapy and radiation and was in and out of the hospital a couple of times, and I remember how sick she was. She was terribly, terribly sick, and she always said she was fine, and she always smiled, always called me, always checked on me, always wondered about other people. After two years Mom died and it was my privilege, my sincere privilege, to be there when she passed. She passed away in my arms, and what a privilege it was for me. At first, if any of your caregivers have had this experience, went through a lot of guilt. Why was it me? Why was I there? She passed away on my mom and dad's 36th wedding anniversary, and my dad was not there, I had sent him home to rest in the hospital. And I went through a lot of guilt and I beat myself up quite intensely that it was me there. I have learned as a caregiver that no, that was the plan. I was supposed to be there, and what a privilege it was for me, what a privilege it was for me to be there in that last earthly moment. I'm lucky that I believe in life after death. I don't worry about Mom, though, if you're in the situation where it's your last moment with somebody that's passing from cancer, please accept the fact that it is a privilege for you to be there. It's very much a privilege, and you should be honored that they chose you.

A painful time

Well, at that point, then, I knew quite a bit about cancer and its treatment. And I did not want anything more to do with cancer at all. I left it behind me. I got it out of my mind as quick as I could. It never goes away but I miss my Mom every day, but I put it out the best I could. Well, like I said I'm the youngest of five children, and two brothers and two sisters. My one sister, Annette, passed away when she was 21 of a brain. So I'd lost grandma and my mom. And then three years ago we found out that my sister, Denise Hancock, had a weird kind of cancer they called bile duct cancer. She had tumors on the side of the upper part of the bile duct towards the liver. She had a major surgery, where they took about approximately 3/4 of her liver. A very good team of surgeons took care of her. She battled hard for about two years, she did her chemotherapy and radiation. After two years passed by, she had a lump on her neck, it was one of her lymph nodes, the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes and Denise died from bile duct cancer. She promised that I would be there when she died. And I was there for her, I was with her when she passed away. Again, what a privilege it was for me. I really wasn't excited about it, I guarantee you that, you guys, but, and I still hurt from it every day, but again, it was my privilege to spend her last moments with her.

That was an extremely painful death for her. Cancer some cancers are worse than others. This cancer tortured her for the last two months, she was in extreme pain, all day, every day. Drugs, the pain drugs that she did take sometimes made her incoherent, which wasn't so bad given the physical state sometimes that she had. Well, I knew about cancer then. I spent every waking moment with her during those last, that last year. I understood it quite well, I believed, at that point. That's where my knowledge started. I did understand it quite well. She died in May of 98. That was it for me. I didn't want anything more to do with cancer. I even though I still spent time and volunteered with the cancer society, it was on a limited basis. I really did not have my heart into it 100% as a volunteer for the cancer society. My father, on the other hand, spent a little bit more time as a volunteer for the cancer society. That's one thing that we've always strongly believed in our families, basically from all the cancer that's been rampant through it, is our belief in volunteerism. Well, I thought I'd had it. That was it. Id' had enough. I'd had enough of cancer, completely.

The warning signs

Well, last year, 1999, I started getting stomachaches. Not like stomachaches like you normally get like when you have stomachache, not like the stomachache you'd get like if you just ate the dinner I cooked for you. Not like that kind of stomachache. Not even the kind of stomachaches where somebody just reaches inside your gut and rips you open, rips open your gut and grabs onto the inside and tries yanking it out. You know, the kind of stomachache where if you're in a crowded room with somebody with a bunch of people, you can't hide it. The first time I ever heard my secretary say anything like, she looked at me one day as I was hunched over my desk gritting my teeth in pain, she said to me, "You know, you're being a real jerk." And being the nice guy that I am, it really surprised me. I knew something was wrong with my stomach at that point. It was just terrible. I figured if I got these stomachaches in a room full of people, there was just no hiding, I would have to leave. I thought that I had an ulcer. So I found myself driving in my truck with a bottle of you know liquid Mylanta or Maalox or something, and a thing of Rolaids and Tums and all kinds of things I was taking and it wasn't working.

So I decided to go to the doctor and check out for an ulcer. And, at first, they said, yeah, you probably have an ulcer, so they prescribed medicine for an ulcer and examined me, and for a few for a week or so I took the medicine and such and it wasn't working. I talked to the doctor and the doctor had said, why don't you go for an ultrasound and check something out. I took an ultrasound, they said, they called me up on a Friday and said, You need your gall bladder out. I want you to go to the hospital. I said, when do you want me to go to the hospital? She said, I want you to go tonight. And I said, No, I'm not going tonight, you know, I'm a single father, I've got things to do you know. No, she said you've got to go to the hospital tonight, you're ulcer to surgery. And she got all-mad at me. She must have heard people say no, so she said, Well that's fine, Mr. Hancock, if you'd like to, I'll set you an appointment with another doctor. I said, Well, that's fine, set me up with another doctor. So she set me up on Saturday, that was the very next day, so I figured she was kind of serious. And before that appointment I talked to my friends, and my best friend said, you know, man, you've been having stomach problems for a long time. You just don't realize it. It's probably this gall bladder thing.

So I went the next day and the doctor concurred and said, You need to get it out. And I said, When? And he said, Well, how long you wanna be in pain? I said All right, lets get it done. So I went into the hospital that night. Well, I said, soon as doctor is gonna put his hands inside of me, I want to shake his hand first, you know, meet this doctor, you know, he was surgeon that I hadn't met. The surgeon came in that night and talked to me and we were discussing a few things and this is where I feel that this doctor, my surgeon, or my aftercare surgeon or one of the surgeons and my sister Denise had passed away literally probably saved my life. We were talking and Tom said, You know, Mr. Hancock, you're listed down here in your file as a "hostile patient" and I went, What? Me? A hostile patient? That was because I didn't want to go to the hospital in the first place. They put me down as hostile. So he said, Well, why did you come in? And I said, Well, you know, cause my sister passed away from cancer, and I joked it off and laughed a little bit and I figured I'd better check this ulcer thing out. He laughed a little bit and that was all we talked about it.

The bad news

Well, I did not know, but this guy went and read my sister's file after he left my hospital bed in the evening. And he came back in that night at 10:30 at night, looking tired as can be, and said, You know, Dale, before we go ahead and take your gall bladder out during the surgery, to take a couple more tests. And I figured to myself, Yeah, right on! Let's do the tests, man, because you're gonna find out I've got an ulcer and you're gonna send me home, you know, without surgery. I didn't know that one of the tests involved surgery, and they were horrible tests. Horrible tests, that they did. And one of the tests they stuck a camera and a tube with scissors on it down my throat, through my stomach and down through my intestines, and through the intestines into, they biopsied the tumor out of my bile duct in the head of my pancreas. That was not a fun test. Not a fun test at all. I figured they were really getting serious at that point, or they wouldn't be doing these things.

To make the long story short, between that and the other test, the doctor came in and said, you know, I've got some bad news for you. And the bad news is that you have cancer. And the really bad news is that it's the same kind your sister passed away from. And I was floored. I was floored. I asked him what would happen if we did nothing. And he gave me about six months to live if we did nothing. If we did something, possibly I would have a ten to thirty percent chance of living five years. And it just floored me. And I said, hey, get my clothes, I'm leaving. Is what I said. I want my stuff and I want to get out of here right now. And he let me go. I just said to myself, "wait a minute, man, wait a minute. I'm Superman! I'm ten feet tall and bulletproof. There is no way. I'm talking, I knew things were going to dang good, I knew things were going too good. I mean, business was going great, my business was thriving, had a brand-new big red pickup truck, a new Harley Davidson sportster, and I was living the vida loca, man, I'm having a great time, things were just going too good. I'm off skiing in the winter, I'm up at the lake wake boarding and skiing in the summer, you know. I've got friends, great kids, but I knew things were going to dang good.

After caring for my family, here I've got it. I've got cancer. So I went for a second opinion, got a referral from a pediatrician doctor friend of mine who had the same cancer and passed away early this year, he passed away in March, the same bile duct pancreatic duct cancer. But at the time he had referred me to a doctor. They performed the same tests and sent me home on the weekend, saying I'll call you on Thursday. On Monday morning he was trying to get hold of me, and I knew something was wrong. So I didn't call back until Tuesday because I knew it was bad news. So he told me, Hay man, you've got the cancer. And he goes, Good news is I think I can do something about it. But the bad news is, the surgery could kill you. So, great. Fantastic. Those are great options. But I figured I'd better get it done. It beats dying in six months in pure pain. So we decided to go through with the surgery. They cut out your duodenum which is a couple of feet long, I understand, take out a couple of feet of intestine, take out half your pancreas, most all my bile duct, the gall bladder. Then they kind of bring everything from the bottom up to the top and sew you all together. And they used to call me skinny last year. And I lost forty pounds. I take pancreatic enzymes, called panacase or diacase, with every meal and every snack. I take generally 20 to 30 pills a day, just to eat, so I can absorb fat. I did not. When I had the surgery I could not eat or drink for two weeks. I begged to get out of that hospital. Oh, I begged to go home. Just send me home, that's all I want. Just to be able to eat, just to eat and not be in pain. Not be in pain.

Getting through the treatment and pain

I tell you, when you have that kind of surgery, that kind of cancer, they pretty much give you any kind of pain killer you feel like. You just gotta ask. But even sometimes they didn't help. All the tubes up my nose and down my throat, it was just pure torture. I doubt that anybody out there understands, I don't want sympathy. I really don't care for sympathy. I want people to understand what a cancer patient goes through. I never understood, even watching it, till I went through it. It's not fun.

I go home and I made it for three days before I lost it and had to be put back in the hospital again. I was close. I was close to checking out. Basically, my pancreas started leaking. The pancreas gives off the most toxic substance the body has to break down meat and plants, and it can eat up your insides. And basically I sprung a leak. So they drilled a hole in me and put a drain in me, and I spent another two weeks in the hospital for three times ---- I think, just over thirty days. And what an expense, too! Even with a good insurance plan, the medical expenses out of pocket are incredible! I want everybody listening to this also to keep that in mind, what the cancer patient goes through financially. It's extreme hardship for some people. Physical aspects, mental aspects, and include the monetary aspects of it. It's just a tough thing for everybody involved.

So anyway, I'm ten months cancer-free now. Generally they give me about a thirty percent chance of living five years. I'm prepared to fight it. That's where, I know this, if it comes back, it's not a good situation for me. Took out ten lymph nodes, one of them had cancer, malignant cancer spreads through the lymph nodes. My chances aren't that good. But I got chances. They told me I had a twenty percent chance, oh, that's another part, too, of keeping my hair through chemotherapy. In five weeks of chemotherapy in March and April, chemotherapy 24 hours a day. They sliced open my chest put a little conduit through it, a tube that went down to the heart, across my chest and to the heart. Every day five days a week I received radiation treatment across my stomach. The only place I lose my hair is on my arms and my belly. Kept all my hair on my head. Gave me a 20% chance of keeping my hair. So the odds are with me. They give me a 30% chance of living. I'll take it. I get it back, I'll fight it. I ain't afraid to. I'm afraid of going through all the pain. I wouldn't lie to anybody asking that question. I don't want to go through pain, dying. But I don't believe it's my time yet, without puttin up a fight. I'll fight it.

Positive and proactive

Hey something I've learned about cancer, one of the good things I've learned about it. It sure changes your attitude. I look at things with a lot brighter picture. I wake up every day in a good mood. Every single day I wake up in a good mood. With a big grin on my face. Hell, I look at things so much as Why did this happen anymore. More as, What can I do about this? I try to be active and proactive. I try to get involved. Hey, you want to figure out a cause to die for, get cancer. All of a sudden, that's a good thing to be volunteering for. My dad's the current president of our local American Cancer Society chapter. I could active volunteer with them. I'll do pretty much anything they want. This year's Relay for Life they honored me, I was the honoree. Hey that was great for me! To be honored. I don't know how many people walked up to me and said I inspired them. I'm thinking to myself, I inspired these folks just by getting cancer. That is a good thing that came from cancer, then, these folks look at me and they're smiling and they're wanting to hear from me, and they're looking and me and going, Man you look pretty damn good. I guess if you could do it, I can do it. Jeez. That's the best part that came from cancer, is that somebody else with cancer got something out of it. That's the best part.

The worst part is like I talked about in the beginning a little bit. I don't like what this has done to my family. How much this has bummed them. The worry they have for me, knowing at any time things could go bad. Try explaining that to a ten or twelve year old. We need to be very compassionate with the young people who have family members that get this. It's very hard for them to understand. It's a little easier for us as adults because we see it time and time again. Everybody knows somebody who's had cancer, has died from cancer or has it now. It's pretty easy for youngsters to keep a rosy look at it. I see no reason to torture them with absolute reality, but there's no reason to hide it from a little kid, either, especially when it involves a parent. My kids are great. I've got two of the best helpers in the world, DJ and Michelle. Going through this, I couldn't have gone through it without them. - Choose as a cancer survivor I choose to let them see the positive parts that I can pull out of it, the parts of helping other people.

Remember when you're first diagnosed with cancer, don't be too hard on yourself. Try not to throw up those walls. Because people don't understand. They see somebody with cancer, they worry about the amount of time that they have left with these people and I've seen them put up those big walls and pushing the people they love away from them. Even though you may think you're doing them a favor, they need to be informed, too. They need to hear about it from you. They've got people asking them about you. Don't put up a wall and it's really only going to hurt the people that love you. Don't feel guilty because you didn't choose cancer, cancer chose you. That's how I have to look at it. I didn't choose it, in fact, I keep trying to run away from it. It just keeps finding me, one way or the other. I've come to the conclusion I didn't choose it. It chose me and there's nothing that I have to lose.

Help fight the fight

There's been a 25% reduction in breast cancer deaths among women and prostate cancer among men if found in its first stages is now 80% curable. Those are the direct results of new research and new drugs that are out there and are available. As a cancer survivor, educate yourself, talk to your doctor, ask the questions, don't assume your doctor knows everything. In my situation they could have taken my gall bladder out and sent me home, and it would have been all over. I got lucky in that respect. Ask the questions. Ask. Educate yourself, yourself. In my situation I call and I ask my doctor what my potassium phosphate levels are. What are my bilirubin counts, what is my liver function, what is my sodium function? I want to know my crit, I want to know my ASPSDOC, I want to know the counts and I know the levels, so I can judge for myself when I'm in trouble, who I need to talk to and do I need to adjust my diet. Educate yourself about these things. Your life is in your own hands to a certain degree.

My good friend Dr. Jonathan passed from the same thing I had earlier this year. For two years with his heartburn, they told him he had gall bladder problems and stomach problems and everything, till they finally diagnosed him with bile duct pancreatic duct cancer. It was too damned late. You're your own best person. If you get heartburn that you haven't had before, if you get stomachaches that aren't like you've had before, you owe it to your family and to yourself to get to the doctor and explain to them. No, you need to understand, doc, these are different kinds, this isn't anything I've experienced before. We need to check this further. It's up to you to take care of yourself.

An important lesson

If I've learned anything at all from this I've had to narrow it down to just one thing I've learned about from cancer both being a caregiver and now being a survivor of ten months, I've learned that life is all about relationships, all about relationships. Relationships are personal, relationships, it doesn't make any difference. Life is all about it, whether you're rich, whether you're poor, may have a lot of time, may have a little time, all about relationships and how we react to people, how people react to us. And what we do with the opportunities that we have when we are reacting and acting with other people. All about relationships. Every day, when I wake up in a good mood, thankful that you've got that day. Make sure the people around you know how thankful you are for them and their relationships. Especially the love you give to other people. Ultimately it's going to be your own judgment cause it's really only true. Our strongest judgment in the end is going to be how we judge ourselves and how we look back on what we've done, how we've lived our life, so live your life your own way and reach for the goals that you set for yourself. If you can be the you that you wanna be, that's success.