My Husband's Medical Miracle

My husband’s health began to fall apart in the Fall of 2005. I remember it so clearly. It was my 30th birthday. He felt so sick and had to tell me that he had planned a surprise birthday party for me in order to have my help. My husband began years of tests and medications in order to try and understand what was happening to his body. He quickly lost fifty pounds and we did everything in our power to keep what little weight was on him.

After years of pain and trying different meds that were meant to simply mask the symptoms, we requested for a referral to a specialist in Boston. Our primary care physician denied the first request. She actually said that she didn’t feel this would help! We demanded the referral and she finally relented.

My husband’s new doctor happened to specialize in the pancreas. Although this was one of the only organs that had never been considered, we were not concerned. The doctor gave my husband a CT scan and everything was found to be normal. Several months later, my husband began to notice that our black lab would continuously rest her head on his abdomen. She would rest it on the same spot every night and when told to “go lay down”, she would refuse and rest her head back down in the same spot.

At my husband’s six-month follow-up appointment, he mentioned casually to the doctor that our dog was behaving this way. His doctor immediately arranged for a repeat CT scan that very day. This time, it was a deeper scan. They found a spot in his pancreas and had his biopsy that afternoon.

He received his diagnosis almost immediately. It was pancreatic cancer. As most people know, when someone receives a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, it is typically too late because there are no symptoms initially. My husband’s physical problems were completely unrelated to this cancer. However, they saved his life because he was pushed to search out a specialist rather than deal with local doctors who simply wanted to overmedicate him. Also, he never would have received the second CT scan if he had not mentioned our dog’s behavior to his doctor. Ultimately, our little black lab saved his life. My husband received six months of chemotherapy and is doing well.

*Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post for a gamma camera company. I participated in a campaign sponsored by Bucks2Blog. The views expressed here are my own.