Paul Borys

After a Series of Setbacks, Pancreatic Cancer Patient Paul Borys Sees Progress

Diagnosed With Stage 3 Pancreatic Cancer in May, 2022, Paul’s Tumor Is Now Shrinking

In March of 2022, Paul Borys’ need for a blood pressure medication refill led to a diabetes diagnosis. In May, doctors told him he had Stage 3 pancreatic cancer. By December, Paul had gone through more ups and downs than most people experience in a lifetime – but with the help of his family, his medical team and other members of the pancreatic cancer community, Paul will start the New Year off with some much-deserved good news – and a strong desire to give back.

A resident of Gilbert, Arizona, Paul considered himself fairly healthy throughout most of his life. He did have high blood pressure and took medication for it. Doctors had also treated him for testicular cancer back in 1995, determining he was cancer-free after 10 years had passed with no reoccurrence.

When Paul went to fill his hypertension medication in March of 2022, tests showed that his blood sugar was sky-high, leading to a series of additional tests and a diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes. After a couple of weeks and additional lab work, Paul’s primary care provider changed his diagnosis from Type 2 diabetes to Type 1.  

An endoscopy, colonoscopy and ultrasound followed, and Paul and his wife, Norine, suspecting cancer, prepared for the worst. It was a pleasant and welcome surprise when Paul’s doctor said the tests hadn’t turned up any masses – nor had his bloodwork indicated cancer, though they had yet to discover that Paul’s blood doesn’t show the cancer markers doctors typically use to measure cancer activity. 

Feeling “out of the woods” for most of April and relatively happy to have just diabetes to deal with, Paul soon had a visit with a gastroenterologist, who, after reviewing Paul’s case, recommended an endoscopic ultrasound.

This time, tests revealed a medium-size mass on his pancreas. Doctors diagnosed Paul with Stage 3 pancreatic cancer May 10, 2022. But there was some positive news – it was possible he was a candidate for surgery.

Paul’s daughter-in-law is an emergency room doctor in a different state and pulled some strings to get Paul an appointment with one of the nation’s preeminent Whipple procedure surgeons. A complex operation often used to treat pancreatic cancer, the Whipple involves removing the head of the pancreas, part of the small intestine, the gallbladder and the bile duct.

During that visit, Paul and his wife suffered yet another disappointment in what seemed to be a continuous series of blows. Because of the positioning of Paul’s tumor, which wrapped around major blood vessels, he was not a candidate for surgery after all. Moments later, and before they’d even left the room where the doctor delivered the bad news, Paul and his wife received a phone call confirming the birth of their third grandchild.

“It tore us apart,” Paul said, feeling joy and sorrow interwoven at the birth of their grandson and devastation at the fact that he now wasn’t sure how much time he’d have to spend with him. “We had done so much research and work to prepare for what we thought was a certainty – a Whipple procedure – and it all fell apart that day.” 

With surgery off the table, doctors took other measures to treat Paul, installing a port in his body to deliver medication and a biliary stent to aid with digestion. That’s when the major complications began.

Doctors had installed the port improperly, and it hadn’t been tested and had a kink in the tube. Then, just days later, the stent that doctors installed collapsed, leading to a bowel perforation and a major infection. 

Paul spent 10 days in the hospital as a result of the infection, experiencing ongoing pain in his stomach that migrated through to his back. While he sat in a hospital bed, Norine spent hours researching doctors, pancreatic cancer programs and potential treatment methods.

A friend had referred the pair to Dr. Erkut Borazanci, M.D., an oncologist and clinical investigator at the Virginia G. Piper Cancer Center at HonorHealth Research Institute. The friend’s husband had hoped to see Dr. Borazanci, or “Dr. B.,” for his own pancreatic cancer treatment but unfortunately passed away from complications related to the cancer before he had the chance.  

Dr. B. recommended Paul start chemotherapy using Gemcitabine, Cisplatin and Abraxane. He began treatment, but by mid-July, he started experiencing violent, convulsing hiccups that went on for almost four days straight. It turned out the hiccups were the result of an abscess and an infection in his gallbladder.

After determining that the gall bladder had burst, filling his abdominal cavity with infectious fluids, and pushing on the diaphragm causing the hiccups, the infection then turned to Sepsis, a serious, life-threatening condition, Paul underwent an emergency procedure and spent the next 3 days in the ICU.  A course of antibiotics and another week in the hospital followed and Paul was finally able to go home.  But it turned out to be just a brief weekend respite with family before he began vomiting and returned to the emergency room again just three days later.

This time, doctors determined his tumor was obstructing his stomach and the opening to the intestines. To rectify the issue, doctors had to put a tube through his nose to drain the stomach and then place a stent directly from the stomach to intestines, bypassing all the digestive organs between. 

The experience was as miserable as it sounds, but, thankfully, his condition improved. After another week in the hospital, Paul returned to Dr. B., who took the previous month’s events as an indication that the cancer was not responding to the first chemotherapy regimen. He decided to switch Paul’s current chemotherapy regimen to one known as “5FU,” a combination of drugs often used to treat pancreatic cancer. Continuous cycles of chemo over the next four months with FOLFIRINOX followed.

In October, Paul had a CT scan, and in November, an MRI, to monitor progress. The fluid still remaining in his abdomen made it difficult to compare the results of both tests. In early December, he had another CT and MRI.

“This tumor is shrinking,” Dr. B. said upon reviewing the results, delivering the first good news Paul had heard in months. The doctor told Paul his markers showed that the chemotherapy had reduced the cancer activity in his body by about half. Paul also recalls Dr. B. telling him that he could live for years upon years the way his cancer was now, and that the plan was to treat it, not so much like a life-or-death situation, but rather, like a chronic illness.

“These people are a bunch of rock stars in terms of intelligence as well as their commitment and tireless passion in their battle against pancreatic cancer,” Paul said of Dr. B. and his team.  Paul finally found the words to describe this major breakthrough. “I feel we are in the presence of a cure!!”

Believing more traditional chemotherapy might do more harm than good, Dr. B. advised Paul to begin radiation in early 2023 while taking oral chemotherapy.

Paul is also starting to feel more like himself – albeit gradually. After losing about 85 pounds, his appetite is making a slow return. Because of physical changes to his digestive anatomy, he’s had to follow a virtually liquid-only diet until recently. 

Dr. B. and his team continued to review and research Paul’s case, looking for potential reasons Paul may have developed pancreatic cancer. Paul underwent genetic testing, among other avenues of research. While tests showed a gene abnormality, it wasn’t something geneticists thought contributed to his cancer. 

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