I conferred with Dr. M. Hernandez at UNM Hospital in ABQ this morning at 11am. M. Kennelly agreed to be with me, and to take notes. It was the second time I had met with him – the surgeon who will be performing The Whipple Procedure on my innards, August 14, 2025. I have great confidence in this extraordinary doctor who exhibits empathy and incredible “bedside manners”. He likes art. His favorite sculptor is Carl Milles. He did excellent drawings of what he planned to resection in my aching gut. Can sculpting my innards be less exacting or beautiful than working in clay…in the right hands?

Agreeing to this surgery has been a long, hard mental decision involving consideration of 4 options given to me to deal with the diagnosis of Stage 1 Pancreatic Cancer – well differentiated! The tumor was tiny – discovered by accident when Dr. Roth, a gastroenterologist, did an endoscopic procedure to unblock a bile duct which had initiated my interaction with doctors and labs and machines that whir and go bump in the dark. Having never experience any of this stuff, it was a mystery that was a bit scary yet fascinating.

I nixed chemo/radiation right away. The hardest option to nix was – do nothing, in which case I would go into decline and be able to request assisted death by cocktail, within 3 months to one year. That one held a strong magnetic attraction, as I have been considering ways to leave life, on my own terms, when I chose, for years. This was like my very own “ticket to exit”!!! Very hard to resist!!

But in the end, I chose surgery and a pretty arduous recovery. Why? I really don’t know. Possibly, it was due to the extraordinarily kind, thoughtful, thorough, optimistic, yet open minded comments, encouragement and love from friends and doctors. I took a rain check on that “ticket to exit”.