Pancreatic Cancer: A Cause Close to My Heart

Pancreatic Cancer is why I chose the accent color purple for my website.

Purple is the color for pancreatic cancer awareness. I chose that accent color for the same reason I wrote a memoir. Writing a story of friendship from the angle of the illness was a complicated and emotional process, which I explained in this interview on my website's opening page.

Biography of a Friendship is meant to help other women, two friends like us, and anyone quietly navigating the pain of watching a loved one face a life-threatening illness... I wrote the story for readers seeking comfort, understanding, and the emotional connection that is often warped at times like these.

My friend needed a cure, but there was no cure. There is still no cure. Yet, there are inspiring stories of survival, thanks largely to clinical trials.

With no symptoms until Stage IV, a pancreatic cancer diagnosis is shattering news. Research is marching on, but it needs our help to stop it in its silent tracks.

Since pancreatic cancer awareness is a cause close to my heart, I support PanCAN's PurpleStride—The Pancreatic Cancer Action Network Walk/Run to End Pancreatic Cancer—because PanCAN's mission is "to create a world in which all patients with pancreatic cancer will thrive." PanCAN does this through groundbreaking programs such as Precision Promise and Know Your Tumor, a personalized treatment instead of a clinical research study of a group of patients. It also supports patients and loved ones 'every step of the way.'

PanCAN's website helps understand the medical and psychological journey of pancreatic cancer.

Unless a life-threatening illness strikes a loved one, we don’t relate to the urgency of finding a cure... for any cancer.