Surviving Pancreatic Cancer

By Herbert Vego

I am writing this for whatever ray of hope it may offer to patients with cancer or any other debilitating disease.

This is the story of my late brother Efren, a police officer who lived for a full 17 years and five months of “bonus life” after surgery due to pancreatic cancer.

He could have died at the operating table in 1997 at age 45. He was ready for that, knowing he had pancreatic cancer. But he continued to live a fruitful life until the age of 62 years and nine months.

Today (June 23) marks his 28^th death anniversary.

In his final years, he immersed himself in social media. In fact, his Facebook page – thanks to his children — is still active in the name of Efren Legaspi Vego. It attracts attention because of his head “implanted” on the body of a body builder; and another head on the formally-attired former US President Barack Obama delivering a speech.

A backdrop behind the “implants” are these words: “Nothing other than my last breath can end my life. We learn from different sources but we get the best education from diversity. Even a turtle, if it never gives up, can finish the race.”

Efren Legaspi Vego finished the race ahead of us, his siblings. He had even expected it much earlier while pinning hope for longer life.

Moving back to January 1997, my 45-year-old brother heard life’s most deafening news while confined at the United Doctors Medical Center in Quezon City, awaiting surgery after he had been diagnosed of a painful cancer of the pancreas.

“I will make the last four months of your life as comfortable as possible,” his doctor told him.

The doc’s “assurance” must have scared Efren more than his eight-centimeter malignancy. It could only mean that, despite the impending surgery, his disease would end his life within four months. So, why would he undergo an expensive surgency?

Not liking what he had heard, he asked his fellow police officer, Nick Caba, to refer him to Dr. Celso Fidel, a famous surgeon at the government-owned AFP Medical Center.

Dr. Fidel briefed my brother about studies revealing that “only one in a thousand pancreatic cancer patients worldwide survive Whipple’s surgery.”

Whipple’s is a complicated surgical procedure aimed at cutting away the almost inaccessible head of the pancreas.

“I’ll go for it,” Efren answered, knowing he could not even be “one in a thousand” if he refused to go under knife.

On January 27, 1997, Dr. Fidel and his team of military surgeons performed an eight-hour operation that removed the ampullary mass at the head of his pancreas, including his gall bladder and portion of his stomach.

With those organs gone, he caught diabetes. Fortunately, he qualified for disability retirement that would entitle him to a monthly pension big enough to support his family comfortably.

In lighter moments, his friends would kid him about life being unfair to good cops. It’s the bad ones – especially protectors of drug lords and crime syndicates – who live longer.

Efren, a good cop, had already proven them wrong. After that surgical procedure, my brother Efren added 17 more years to his life and more life to his years together with his beloved wife Amparo and their children Walter, Cheryl and Honey; and on many occasions with us his siblings.

He also cherished his meetings with high school classmates, using Facebook as a venue to organize annual reunions.

On May 2, 2014, he posted a message that he might not be around to attend their May 3 reunion in San Jose, Antique due to failing health.

The following day, he posted another message declaring that he had recovered and was strong enough to fly from Manila for the reunion. He arrived there on time and hugged everybody, whispering, “Let me hug you for the last time.”

On June 11, 2014, Efren was rushed to the Commonwealth Medical Center in Quezon City. There he instructed his family and his doctors to do away with all “human intervention” in case his medicines would not work anymore.

He returned to his creator at 4:30 in the morning of Monday, June 23, 2014.

For the nth time, I would like to thank Dr. Celso Macaso Fidel – the surgeon to whom my brother owed his extended life – who is now enjoying a healthy retirement with his family in the United States.

Email: hvego31@gmail.com