Pancreatic Cancer Treatment on the Trail
After over three years of chemotherapy, multiple surgeries (including the Whipple, considered the most complicated abdominal surgery in existence), numerous complications, complex therapies, insurmountable side effects, and too many emergency room visits to count...Laurie MacCaskill was told she had three to six months to live. This just wasn’t going to work for her. After this new diagnosis, a treatment was recommended that would require Laurie to come to the hospital every day, twice a day, for thirty days, with an IV administered for two hours in the morning and two hours in the evening.
“If I only have three months to live, I don’t want to spend one of them in this dreary hospital. Can I learn to administer the treatment myself?”
Laurie's doctor commented, “No one’s ever asked me this before.” Laurie learned quickly and made it happen. Three weeks into her treatment on an especially beautiful morning, Laurie decided that she and her husband should ride their bikes up a mountain - 7500 feet to 9800 feet. The challenge was that she had one and a half hours remaining for her treatment. Laurie decided she was going anyway! She assembled a fanny pack with all the accouterments that went along with the treatment (towels, syringes, alcohol swabs, etc…).
After about an hour and a half riding up the mountain, Laurie pulled her bike to the side of the trail, found a bear proof trash container and completed her treatment, over 9,800 feet in the air!
Laurie thought, was this the perfect setting that her doctor would have expected her treatment to be administered? Probably not! But Laurie felt that she was careful, conscientious and most importantly, living her life. You can’t do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about the width and the depth. Laurie’s perspective on this new measure of time gives audience members a new outlook on uncovering hidden expectations and assumptions that may dictate your time - and if you’re not careful, your entire life.
