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Veteran's Affairs Plus discusses the issues that veterans in Las Vegas deal with on a daily basis. Your host, David L. Washington connects listeners with relevant community resources and information that they need to help veterans or themselves.
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This is a Kun V studios original program. You're listening to special programming sponsored by making moves, life coaching services. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education. You
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what's going on good day Las Vegas. This is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5
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jazz and more. I'm Dave Washington, your host. And I always say I'm excited when I have certain types of guests on. But I'm really excited about this one, because it's my surgeon from MD Anderson, Dr Jessica Maxwell, which I'll have her to introduce herself shortly after I make a couple of announcements here. And also our middle daughter, Angel the feisty one, if you would.
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And then I want to acknowledge, once again, the family in terms of condolences to Melvin Givens, who recently passed away, and he's a long time resident of Las Vegas. With that, I want to introduce Dr Jessica maskwell, and this is ladies, one thing, it was very important that I got you, Doc, and I didn't even know it kind of how God works. This is pancreatic cancer month that I wasn't even aware of until our eldest daughter, April told me this is panic cancer. I said, Well, I've invited my surgeon to be on the show, and she's agreed. So Hello, Doc. How are you? And please give just an indication of a little bit about your background, about your background, to our listening audience, if you would. Yeah, hi Dave and hi Angel. Good to talk to both of you again. It's a real honor to be able to be on the show and have a chat.
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I'm Jess Maxwell. I am a surgical oncologist. I'm originally from Iowa. So I grew up in the Midwest, went to public school there, played clarinet, played soccer, had a pretty average upbringing, all things said and done, but got interested in science, kind of as I was moving through high school and things like that. So decided to go to the University of Wisconsin in Madison for undergrad. Studied immunology and microbiology there and thereafter, kind of had a decision point, you know, did I want to do science, you know, and work with people, or did I want to do science in a lab? And sort of decided that that working with people was was more my passion. So that's what led me to medicine. Initially. Wow, and you were inspired by just the thought of wanting to work with people versus just lab testing. That's interesting. Well, I think it was a combination of things. You know, I had a personal connection to medicine. Some I lost someone who was very important to me to cancer when I was younger, and that, certainly, you know, led me to think a lot about the pursuit of medicine and the ways in which medicine can have a positive impact on people's lives, even when, you know, ultimately, it doesn't work out right, and he died of cancer.
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But I think that it had a very profound impact on, you know, the way in which I thought I could potentially have an impact on people's lives going forward. And so there was sort of that personal crusade, but that can only sort of take you so far, right, right? And you have to kind of decide if the other components are fit within your wheelhouse as well. And they did seem to for me, excellent Angel. Give a little background on yourself, if you would please.
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So as you said, Daddy and Hi, Dr Maxwell,
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I am the middle daughter of David and Marcia Washington. I am a crime prevention specialist for the North Las Vegas Police Department, but in my fun time, spare time, you know, I am the most favorite middle daughter, but I also write books, children's books, to encourage youth when they are going through difficult times in their lives. That's wonderful, excellent. So, Doc, I think it's important
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for you to share, if you would, in as simple terms as possible.
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What was surgery, and when I was, you know, when I found out about it, that that's what I would have to have. I'm like, oh my goodness, and I started studying it. And I'm like, You need to stop studying me, because you're gonna start running when
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they get ready to lock you down to the table. You gonna be trying to get.
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Get up and run. So would you explain it to our listening audience? Doc, please. Yeah, absolutely. So a Whipple operation is the short name for the longer term, which is pancreato
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duodenectomy. And what that means is that it is a cancer surgery for problems in the head of the pancreas. So your pancreas is an organ that helps you digest and regulate blood sugar, and it's kind of long. It sort of starts on the right side of your belly, and it stretches all the way over to the left, and the head is over on the right side of your belly. So when patients have tumors or problems in the head of their pancreas, they need to have an operation called this, called a Whipple and what that means is that the patient will ultimately have part of their stomach, the entire first portion of their small intestine called the duodenum, removed part of their bile duct, which is the tube that connects the Liver to the small intestine, their gallbladder, and
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then, of course, the head of the pancreas. And so that whole piece of tissue has to come out because of the way the blood vessels connect everything, so that gets removed. And then we have to do the second part of the operation is the reconstruction. And so what that means is that we take a piece of the small intestine and we sew it to the pancreas so that you can, you know, digest with the help of the pancreas again. We sew it to the bile duct so that bile can drain into your GI tract again. And then we sew the small intestine to the stomach so that you can eat, so all of your digestive juices can can mix with your food. Lord have mercy. It's making me want to sit here and start crying. I went through all of that because I remember when, when, when they, when you guys first took me in, when the anesthesiology said he said something about horses, I think I said horse. And next thing I knew, I was coming out of
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going into recovery. And I'm like, Oh, my What happened? And I And Marsha said,
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you said I didn't see my mom, your mom, or my mom and dad and blah, blah. Why are you looking for dead people? And I say, Well, from what I've been told, if you see dead people, they coming to get you.
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So it was a good thing that I didn't see anyone. But I can tell you, I felt so comfortable. And I felt comfortable because when me and Marsha met you, I asked you, was you religious, or were you a more of a What did I spiritual? Spiritual person? You say, well, more spiritual. I said, Well, me too, even though I'm a Christian by, you know, by baptism, but I knew I would be in good hands. And then when, when, when it was because, you know, I kept telling my family. Martha said, You need to stop saying it. But I was trying to convince myself with taking this 5000 milligram THC, another friend, John, he turned me on to a vegetable and fruit smoothie. So I'm taking this stuff, and I'm thinking, Man, when I get down here, you're gonna say no, you're good. And when you said, No, you still have to have surgery, I just immediately flipped my mind. Ain't no need of me trying to get stressed about this and being anxious. I just said, Okay, gotta do what we gotta do. And I was just so comfortable and and as I've told many friends, like when I went for fire chief in the city of Las Vegas, that's the first and this time prior to this, that's the second time as athletes talk about it. I know you probably as an athlete as well. You be in that zone. I was in the zone that Amen, everything is good, and I say I'm not in control of anything. Nor, in fact, is my surgeon, this doctor. She's a great doctor. I know because, you know, she told me she can handle this, it would be okay and and I know that God is in control of everything, so I was very, very comfortable, but I kept when I came out, I put up my three fingers, and Marsha just looked at me, because I'm thinking, my goal is to get out of here in three days. I think I wound up staying. I think I wound up five or six days. And, you know, Angel Amber. They were with your with your fellow. They going round and round with it, with from their own experience, with some major surgery and, you know, and I'm trying, I don't want to, I don't want to fight, you know, we had some, some very, I guess you would say, instructive dialog,
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that we were all respectful, because I'm listening to her, also listening to what you had told me as well. And I gotta deal with all this stuff in my head, listening to my daughters. And I said, Well, it's something that it's been done now. Now it's a matter of, you know, the draining and, you know, and getting my, my the scar, getting all that healed up and stuff, but it was really something to go through that. And I have a lot of advice for people, and I've already been sharing, and I will continue to share that. You know these folks, they know what they're doing. And from the previous show, we had a registered nurse who was working from home, and our other daughter, Amber.
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On the show, and we talked about what you had told us. You said you told Marshall, there's gonna be times when he's gonna be snapping. Because, you know it, even though I tried to keep from allowing myself to get depressed or anxious about what was going on, because and I never asked God, why me? Because I'm thinking in my head, why not me? And I've tried to be a good soldier, and like I've told you many, many times, Doc, and I'll let you get back in that I want to be, and I'm still trying to be a good patient, because I think that's important to to the healing process. Doc, yeah, well, I mean, I'm just going to make sure your audience knows you've been an excellent patient. I appreciate that. A hard headed patient. I have a question for the doctor, if Dr Maxwell does not mind. So when my dad was first diagnosed, as you, I'm sure know, we went through a series of misdiagnosis here in Las Vegas, questionable diagnose, diagnosis, which is what landed him at MD Anderson, Houston, and so we had not had, like, really, firsthand experience with pancreatic cancer, but I do have an old co worker of mine, her mother passed away. It's been, I think, two years
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from pancreatic cancer and it and, I think from diagnosis to her passing was maybe a year and a half or so, and I know hers was obviously at a later stage. My question to you is based on the things that you hear, or, you know, the general public probably hears about pancreatic cancer, which is when it shows symptoms, is when it's probably in a later stage. But thankfully for my dad, although he seemed to be symptomatic based on his weight loss and all of that,
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you were able to catch it early and still perform the Whipple. Is the Whipple not available to patients when it's caught later in stage. That's a That's a great question. And I think you know, just to highlight how common your Dad's experience is, you know, it's, it's hard sometimes to make the right diagnosis right away, even with really smart people trying to do the best that they can with the information that they have. But it was really fortuitous, you know, that that diagnosis was, was made at that time, because you're absolutely right that,
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you know, surgery is what we call a local a local therapy. And what that means is that it only addresses the problem in the pancreas, right? So all that I can do with with my knife, very simply, is to, you know, cut out the tumor and the surrounding tissue, and it doesn't do anything for any of the cancer cells that may have escaped from that tumor. And we know that that can happen pretty frequently in pancreas cancer. And as you say, it can happen.
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May not even know that it's happened, right? The diagnosis may not even have been performed. But the problem in those cases, and the reason that surgery is then not typically helpful is because once the little cancer cells have escaped the pancreas, your problem isn't in only the pancreas anymore, right now, this is what we call a systemic problem, and the only therapies that we have that can address systemic problems Are chemotherapy, right? Surgery can only help, really,
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except in very, very specific situations when the cancer has stayed in the pancreas. And you know, beyond that, even if the cancer has stayed in the pancreas, sometimes an operation isn't possible because of the way that that tumor wraps around blood vessels that are in the area. You know, there are some blood vessels we just, we can't sacrifice meaning remove. And there are some that are even too small, even if we, you know, can sometimes remove them. If we can't rebuild them or reconstruct then, you know, that's another situation where an operation just may not be possible.
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Look, Doc, one thing that angel, and I really appreciate her, even though I think, rather than a crime prevention specialist, she should be a detective,
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because she's she's always researching. So she went on and once again, this is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and one. I was just looking at my producer, director, who look at me like you better announce what this show is do, because y'all just rattling right along.
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So, so anyway, Doc, what? What angel has done? She's gone on to a it's like a chat group of folks who've had pantry addict, the Whipple in particular, and it has been a tremendous help to me, in terms of her just feeding me information. I'm not even on it, but she, but she's talking with these people, and they, they've given some great advice to him, to include how to eat now. But anyway, thoughts, thoughts on, on, on that in general, Doc, in terms of just listening to what other people and everybody's one thing I've learned is everybody's issue is different.
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Different. We all deal with it differently.
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I think, you know, you'll, you'll hear physicians. A lot of us tell our patients, you know, don't get on Dr Google. You know, at various stages of of you know your your cancer journey. But I think that support groups and hearing other patients and families experiences are completely different from that. Like, I don't think that that really falls into that category. I've had a lot of patients who have found tremendous value and peace in that, because you're absolutely right. You know, regardless of the relationships that you may have with your medical oncologist or your family or your surgeon, you know, everybody thinks through these things differently, and the way that you think through your process and your journey changes as well as as time passes and as more, you know, events accumulate along that path. And so I think it's really great to be able to reach out and hear, you know, other people's experiences, some that have gone well, some that may not have you know gone quite as well, and just kind of understand how other people are moving through that journey. I think it's important to hear all those different perspectives, and I suspect that there's a lot of you know kind of tips and tricks as well, right?
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Because this whole, this whole journey, is just that, right? It's not a single moment in time. Your Whipple wasn't just a single moment in time or single hours in time, right? It was the lead up to it. It was the operation itself. It's the recovery, and you're still recovering, right? And that recovery is you know. It takes a lot. It takes more than just you know you and your hard headedness. It
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has taken you know you and your family and probably a good number of your friends and the rest of your support group, and you know, it's, it's important, and I think that those support groups, you know, these online groups or or other resources like that, are probably, you know, they kind of become a part of your whole recovery process as well. That's true. That's true. In fact, folks from from all walks of life, they have helped me and my family in so many ways that you cannot imagine, and it gives me strength. And I tell people all the time, well, when they say I didn't want to text or call you, I didn't want to bother, you're not a bother. You're an inspiration to me to hear from people that that care about me and my family in this journey, because it and I tell people now the journey isn't over, and particularly as I when I try to eat and I can't taste my food, I'm like, Man, this is man. This is worse than the surgery I can't and I know they'd be on me. Dr Maxwell, you gotta eat. You got it? I know. I know. I try. So now I'm doing sometimes three to five, sometimes two, sometimes six times small meals. And it's working because I didn't tell Marsh. I got on the scale of the day, and I know it's not the most accurate at home, but I was at 135 I had got down to 130 so I'm inching back up, and I know that I'm I'm trying to do the right thing. And another thing I wanted to ask you, Doc, in terms of people who come down with it, is there any particular age group or it varies just based upon what happens in their body, based upon, I would imagine, because I'm seeing what after you guys assign me a dietician. I said to the dietician, 85 nine, and I won't cuss with but of this stuff that I eat, we shouldn't be eating. And she, she said, That's right. I'm like, Oh my goodness.
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So just just another so in terms of numbers, is age wise, or just varies all over the place.
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Pancreatic cancer most commonly affects people later in life, so, you know, 65 and beyond.
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You know, we would consider early onset to be 45 or younger. And while that happens, and we tend to be, you know, picking up on it in younger and younger patients, unfortunately,
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you know, most commonly. And this is true with most cancers. It is, it is a disease of people as they age, and part that's because of just what cancer is. You know, cancer is your normal cell going rogue, right? So it accumulates enough, you know, changes over time, that it causes it to be abnormal, so that it grows really quickly. And then that's when it that's when it causes problems, is when it kind of crosses that line between, you know, a little bit abnormal to very abnormal. And you can imagine that that, you know, in terms of accumulating those changes, genetic mutations, etc. You know that happens with time. So it tends to happen in older people.
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So I wanted to jump in real quick and just touch on what the doctor said. And as it relates to Google, when he first got his diagnosis, I was driving myself crazy with Google,
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which is obviously frowned upon. But once we found out that the Whipple was an eye.
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Option for him, or the option for him, or the choice for him, rather, which is when I went on Facebook and I found that group, and they have been tremendously helpful. I think it's called Whipple. Whipple surgery survivors, I think is what it's called. But these people are from across the world, and everybody's experience has been different, but they're all here. I mean, obviously there have been some people that have lost people along the way, and it hasn't always necessarily been related to the pancreatic cancer, because a lot of these people have been older in age too, that have the pancreatic cancer. But the information, the suggestion for Creon and other pancreatic enzymes that they've suggested. I'm like, Daddy, you need to ask about Creon like you need to hurry up and figure it out, because you're dropping weight like crazy. But you know, even
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what they take and the dosage they take and when they take it, I mean, everybody's experience has just been super different, which is also, like, intriguing to me, and I guess it's just the way that the body is made up, right? Every individual person is made is based on, kind of, like, this reflection of how they react to the surgery and what happens with them. Yeah. I mean, you're exactly right. You know, as you've noticed, there are some commonalities that kind of go through, right? There's a lot of people on Creon. There's a lot of people experiencing certain kinds of symptoms. Kinds of symptoms, etc, but at the end of the day, everybody you know, you have some people that hardly need any you have some people that are hugely affected by one one pill versus others that need six pills during you know. And that that's exactly right. It's just, you know, how does your liver function? How does everything else you know go together.
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So it's, it's great when you can kind of hear other people's experiences and know that just because you haven't hit on the perfect combination of some aspect of your care immediately, like you know, you can make adjustments and those things you know may make a big difference. Yeah, well, I can tell you, Doc, we appreciate you so much in your expertise and and thank God that you selected this field as a specialty to go into. So what advice would you give to those who are out there in our listening audience? And again, this is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and more. And I know that there's a number of veterans who listen to the show, as well as other people in our community in terms of what to look for. And I know we talked about weight loss and other things that could occur that will throw your body off, that you need to be recognized. And I was just grateful to God that we recognize this early on and and I think it's one of been the saving graces for me, that it was diagnosed early versus later. Yeah, I think, you know, in that specific scenario, that the thing that everybody needs to think about carefully and families too, is, you know, even if the first diagnostic workup doesn't turn anything up. You know, if you really feel like something isn't right, you know your body better than anybody right. You know the people around you know you better than the doctors who you know had their hearts in the right place and their brains in the right place, but just couldn't make the dots connect. And that happens sometimes, but if you really feel like there is something wrong, you got to be persistent, just as you guys were, you know, and just make sure that until you feel comfortable with somebody saying there's nothing wrong, you know, then you got to keep you got to keep your head down, and you got to keep looking and asking, because, you know, diagnostic workups can, vary depending on what resources different different institutions have. And you know, you got to trust your gut. That's, you know, what my best advice for life, yeah. And to your point, Doc and Angel Miss mentioned the quote, unquote misdiagnosis. One thing that I found is you guys at MD Anderson, you have a higher level of of, I don't want to call it machinery, but whatever, whatever, huh, equipment, equipment that that pinpointed a thing and said, yes, it's there, and here's what it is. And so all those things, because, see, after we got the first diagnosis, and they said it was benign, me and Marsha said, Oh, we're going to get a second opinion, because her sister has been down there with you guys, and she lives in in Houston. Have been you guys have been working with her for 12 years. And we said, well, that's where we're going to go. And I'm glad we made that decision, because my personal doctor told me he mentioned MD Anderson is one of the top ones. And so it was easier for us to decide look. And as Angel mentioned, we can't be messing around because alone use, you know, you mess around and not getting something done in terms of having a a more critical diagnosis, if you will. Well, not necessarily critical, but another look at what's going on inside your.
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Body. So I am grateful to God that He led us that way to get that done. And so doc, one of the things I asked you during our early conversation was, what's the percentage of complete recovery? And you told me about 15% and I said that I plan to be and I still do. I'm gonna keep harping on that. I plan to be a 15 percenter?
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Absolutely. I plan on that, too. And let me ask you something, how how's your son doing with this, with all this athletic stuff going on, he's doing great. So in a proud mama moment, he actually played the Star Spangled Banner on his electric guitar for his school's Veterans Day
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Program. So that was, that was really cool and cool. Happy belated birthday. Yeah, happy belated birthday too. So we got about another three and a half minutes or so, so any final thoughts and Angel question to Doc, and then we'll let her have the final remarks. And I should tell you guys very quickly. Next month, I plan to have Antonio Farkas, who used to be a movie star, and then also chiefs Kevin Taylor and Oscar Jones, who just recently held a function down in Chandler, Arizona for some retired firefighters. I plan to have them on the show next month. That's great. My final I just want to say, oh, go ahead and go ahead. I just want to go ahead and thank you to Dr Maxwell. We appreciate your expertise and your wonderful care for my father, because it was extremely stressful time for us, and he's still stressing us out when he doesn't but we, I want to speak for the family and just say thank you.
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We truly appreciate you and your work. Well, it's certainly been my pleasure to take care of him and get to know all of you and look forward to an ongoing relationship. Absolutely and I we're working Marcia. She checks the mind chart, which I don't even know how to get into it, but they've already started getting me lined up for further appointments. And as I said, when you told me I got to come down there for the next two months on a quarterly basis, I'm like, that's what I got to do. That's what I got to do. Because certainly, if it comes back, I know your goal, and the goal of the all the medical staff there is to get on top of things and tell your nurse that I said, Hey, and I hope that her captain husband is doing well in his position as Houston Fire Department there. But doctor, Oh, Daddy. And Doctor was asking you how long you've had your show. Oh, I've had about two years now. Yeah, no, it's wonderful. Yeah. And, Oh and speaking of that Doc, you can get it on. You can go to the podcast, wherever you get your podcast, and look at, can you be 91.5 jazz and more. And on top of that, when the show airs this Saturday, I'm gonna it goes to podcast about an hour or two later. I will send it to you to make sure you get the show, and you can pass it on to some of your colleagues, but I really appreciate you for coming on to the show, because sometimes when people you talk about going on radio go, they go, I don't think so, because I had a young lady that was she was a pancreatic cancer nurse. She had said yes, and when I made contact, yeah, I don't feel comfortable, but you did a great job. And again, my goal here, as I mentioned to you when I asked you to come on with this platform, I want to try to help as many people as I can. I think that's a god charge. If you have a platform to do things to help others, we should. So thank you so very much. Absolutely. It was my pleasure. All right, this is Veterans Affairs plus some 91.5 jazz and more. Had the wonderful Jessica Maxwell from Indiana. She was my surgeon, and also my middle daughter, who should be a detective angel on the show. So thank you. Wes for garnering us through the process today. You
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all the smoke in the air till they hate when they stare all the pain that we bear, all you bear.
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