Pancreatic cancer survivor was given four months to live; six years later she shares her story
At age 69, Pam Sander had lived a wonderful life. A former teacher and lifelong St. Louis resident, Pam had been married to her soulmate, Roy, for almost 50 years. “We finish each other’s sentences,” Pam laughs. “We’ve gotten to be the typical old married couple.”
After going to the doctor with stomach pain, Pam learned she had pancreatic cancer. “I asked the doctor how long somebody usually lives with this,” Pam recalls. “She said about four months.”
After realizing she wouldn’t make it to 70, Roy was overcome with sadness. But Pam took the opportunity to reflect on how wonderful her life had been: “How lucky I had been to live my whole life with someone I loved. With children that I loved. With friends that I love…so we didn’t cry anymore. We just got on with gettin’ on.”
As Pam tried to come to terms with her diagnosis, her doctor presented her with some potentially exciting news: she was eligible for a clinical trial of a new form of targeted radiation therapy, known as MRIdian, developed by ViewRay.
Shortly after treatment, Pam learned that her tumor had not grown. “I felt like I could exhale,” she says. “Like we could live our lives again.”
Now six years after treatment, Pam is one of an incredibly small number of pancreatic cancer survivors who has lived more than five years. She attributes the clinical trial using MRIdian to saving her life: “I [feel] proud to be part of history,” says Pam. “If this can help other people, wouldn’t that be wonderful? It just made [me] feel like [I was] doing something worthwhile… I thank the doctors and that machine for being my saviors.”
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