{"id":187143,"date":"2022-06-15T14:29:04","date_gmt":"2022-06-15T18:29:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=187143"},"modified":"2022-06-15T18:12:56","modified_gmt":"2022-06-15T22:12:56","slug":"cancer-survivor-credits-doctors-at-uconn-health-for-determination-to-find-answers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2022\/06\/cancer-survivor-credits-doctors-at-uconn-health-for-determination-to-find-answers\/","title":{"rendered":"Cancer Survivor Credits Doctors at UConn Health for Determination to Find Answers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A trip to the Emergency Department at <a href=\"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/plan-your-visit\/locations-and-directions\/uconn-john-dempsey-hospital\">UConn John Dempsey Hospital<\/a> for severe jaundice led to a diagnosis of a bile duct blockage for Jay Buth of Avon.\u00a0 After some further research, a stent was placed in the bile duct and his gall bladder was removed.<\/p>\n<p>When the stent was removed from his bile duct, it collapsed and he ended up back in the Emergency Department where a CT Scan was performed and incidentally found a visible mass on Buth\u2019s pancreas.<\/p>\n<p>Buth followed up with Dr. Murali Dharan, assistant professor of <a href=\"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/gastroenterology\/\">Gastroenterology at UConn Health<\/a> who ordered a PET scan. The PET scan indicated that the tumor was at a very early stage and was localized to the pancreas providing a good prognosis.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat I love about UConn Health was that they kept looking and were not satisfied until they found the answer,\u201d says Buth.<\/p>\n<p>During digestion, your pancreas makes pancreatic juices called enzymes. These enzymes break down sugars, fats, and starches. Your pancreas also helps your digestive system by making hormones. Pancreatic cancer is a type of cancer that starts in the pancreas and pancreatic adenocarcinoma is the most common type of pancreatic cancer.<\/p>\n<p>Risk factors for pancreatic cancer include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serfif; font-size: 16px;\">Tobacco use<\/span><\/li>\n<li>Being overweight<\/li>\n<li>Diabetes<\/li>\n<li>Chronic pancreatitis<\/li>\n<li>Workplace exposure to certain chemicals<\/li>\n<li>Age &#8211; Almost all patients are older than 45. About two-thirds are at least 65 years old. The average age at the time of diagnosis is 70.<\/li>\n<li>Gender- Men are slightly more likely to develop pancreatic cancer than women.<\/li>\n<li>Race &#8211; African Americans are slightly more likely to develop pancreatic cancer than whites.<\/li>\n<li>Family history<\/li>\n<li>Inherited genetic syndromes<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Symptoms:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Abdominal pain that radiates to your back.<\/li>\n<li>Loss of appetite or unintended weight loss.<\/li>\n<li>Yellowing of your skin and the whites of your eyes (jaundice)<\/li>\n<li>Light-colored stools.<\/li>\n<li>Dark-colored urine.<\/li>\n<li>Itchy skin.<\/li>\n<li>New diagnosis of diabetes or existing diabetes that&#8217;s becoming more difficult to control.<\/li>\n<li>Blood clots.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Buth met with Dr. Pragna Kapadia, assistant professor of the <a href=\"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/medicine\/divisions\/hematology-oncology\/\">Department of Medicine Hematology and Medical Oncology Division<\/a> at the <a href=\"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/cancer\/\">Carole and Ray Neag Comprehensive Cancer Center at UConn Health<\/a> and Dr. David McFadden, professor and chair of the<a href=\"https:\/\/health.uconn.edu\/surgery\/\"> Department of Surgery at UConn Health<\/a> to determine his treatment plan.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_187146\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-187146\" style=\"width: 225px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-187146 img-responsive lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/IMG_0754-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/IMG_0754-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/IMG_0754-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/IMG_0754-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/IMG_0754-1536x2048.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/IMG_0754-315x420.jpg 315w, https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/IMG_0754-499x665.jpg 499w, https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/IMG_0754-scaled.jpg 1920w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 225px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 225\/300;\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-187146\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jay Buth and his wife as a recent concert.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Buth started what would be eight rounds of chemotherapy which will be followed by a chemo-radiation combination. He was fortunate that he didn\u2019t have major side effects from the chemotherapy which included five hours at the infusion center and another 48 hours at home.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBesides cancer, I was in the best shape of my life,\u201d says Buth.<\/p>\n<p>From there, Buth will have a Whipple procedure (pancreaticoduodenectomy) this summer. This is the most common operation to remove cancer in the head of the pancreas. During this operation, the surgeon removes the head of the pancreas and sometimes the body of the pancreas as well. Nearby structures such as part of the small intestine, part of the bile duct, the gallbladder, lymph nodes near the pancreas, and sometimes part of the stomach are also removed. The remaining bile duct and pancreas are then attached to the small intestine so that bile and digestive enzymes can still go into the small intestine. The end pieces of the small intestine (or the stomach and small intestine) are then reattached so that food can pass through the digestive tract (gut).<\/p>\n<p>Judith Cooney PhD, health psychologist and associate professor of Psychiatry at the Cancer Center at UConn Health practices health psychology, a specialty area that applies psychological principles and evidence-based treatments to help manage the psychosocial impact of medical and health problems and to change health behaviors.<\/p>\n<p>In health psychology, Cooney works with cancer patients at all phases of treatment to help cope with cancer, evaluation and diagnosis, treatment, and post-acute treatment during survivorship to return to life and thrive following cancer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOften survivorship is the chapter in the cancer journey that gets the least support,\u201d says Dr. Cooney. \u201cIt\u2019s a transformative and frightening time after cancer changed their life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cooney has been working with Buth\u00a0 to help him cope with the distress of his challenging cancer diagnosis, and his difficult acute treatment phases and their work will continue to the post-treatment phase.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMr. Buth has been amazing in learning ways to manage distress and transform and grow through cancer,\u201d says Cooney. \u201cHis story is inspirational.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Buth who sees Cooney weekly says \u201cShe is amazing and has helped me on a host of levels beyond cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Buth now has a new perspective on life, focusing on the little things, the important people in his life, and finding joy in everything.\u00a0 He credits the tools in the \u201ctool kit\u201d that Cooney provided him with getting through this with a positive outlook.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHad I not had issues with the gall bladder that tried to kill me, we may not have found this so early, it actually saved me,\u201d says Buth. \u201cWe would be having a very different conversation now had it not been found so early.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am over the moon with the care at UConn, it is world-class,\u201d says Buth.\u00a0 \u201cI love the nurses and cannot say enough about how wonderful they are \u2013 they do God\u2019s work.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cI am over the moon with the care at UConn Health, it is world-class,\u201d says Jay Buth about his experience with his care after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":187144,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2230,179],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2209],"class_list":["post-187143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cancer","category-uconn-health"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-30 06:59:55","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187143"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":187158,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187143\/revisions\/187158"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/187144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187143"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=187143"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=187143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}