Hi Fellow Ryan Supporters! Please see his update below:

Hi All! Thank you so much for showing your support of me and others with pancreatic cancer today on World Pancreatic Cancer Day. I hope you have been able to learn a little more about pancreatic cancer.

Brooke and I got back from Rochester, MN and our visit with Mayo Clinic yesterday. We wanted to get established at Mayo Clinic as they are obviously closer than my east coast doctors, and easier to get to should we need additional eyes on a problem. Wow, are we glad we had this appointment.

A quick recap: I started the maintenance pill targeted to my BRCA mutation in mid-September. This visit at Mayo was set up to coincide with my two month scan so we could see how the maintenance pill was working.

Brooke and I left early on Tuesday and had a nice drive up to Rochester. We headed to the hospital where I got labs and a CT scan done. Since we have the patient portal, we were able to see results before we met with the doctor on Wednesday morning. Unfortunately, the labs and scan were not what we had hoped. There is concern that I may have new metastatic lung nodules that are growing. The possible spread to a lymph node in my abdomen does seem to have grown slightly also. The doctor (Dr. Ryan Carr) told us that overall the scan looks really good (albeit with some minimal growth), but my tumor marker (CA19) went from 2,400 to over 10,000 in three weeks! Normal is less than 34. This is by far the highest it has ever been and the quickest it has risen. This was extremely concerning to the doctor as well as quite a shock for us. We expressed to the doctor that we want to be as aggressive as possible.

With that being said, he suggested immediately stopping the maintenance pill and re-starting chemo. He suggested starting a new combination that I haven’t had before (gemcitabine/abraxane). The goal is to get the CA19 down quickly and stop any more spread at this time. The plan is to do chemo for 2-4 months. I will do once a week chemo for three weeks and then have one week off. Then, since I have “minimal” disease, if I have a good response I will mix regular (daily) radiation with chemotherapy. This combination has been shown to be effective for systemic/metastatic disease to get a better control on cancer cells floating around my body.

I am hoping to be able to start chemotherapy this week or next prior to the holiday, and may have to head back up to Mayo if I can’t get it done here. Overall, while this is a stressful situation, I feel really good and healthy! I am ready to battle, and hope you all continue to join in and support me as I keep fighting!!

Thank you so much for following along and for your continued support as I continue this journey to BEAT PANCREATIC CANCER!

-Ryan