10 years after pancreatic cancer diagnosis, survivor sends message of strength and hope

Louis Baldachino has marked 10 years since he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, underscoring a message for cancer patients to keep going through mental strength and hope.

Over the past 10 years, Mr Baldachino, now 68 years old, has seen his two sons and daughter, now in their 20s and 30s, grow up and achieve their own milestones and aspirations.

Touching moments and a strong will have kept him going over the years while undergoing multiple surgeries, treatments, numerous setbacks and a clinical trial for immunotherapy cancer drug.

When he was diagnosed in 2015, Mr Baldachino was given just three to six months to live.

He was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer, which had spread to his spleen, stomach, adrenal glands, and abdominal wall.

Three months of chemotherapy and one month of radiotherapy shrunk the cancer by 50%, a surgery removed nearly all the cancer in his organs except his abdominal wall, and a clinical trial in CUN Pamplona removed the rest.

Now, 10 years later, he urges cancer patients to stay motivated, if necessary pursue clinical trials and keep on pushing for survival.

Mr Baldachino’s clinical trial was successful for solely him and currently he has no evidence of disease but he needs to keep up the treatment once every three weeks in CUN Madrid to ensure the cancer does not return.

“I've learned from my journey you have to be prepared for an opportunity to come,” he said.

“The opportunity came by way of opting for a clinical trial and I signed up for it.”

“You need the mental strength and the courage to believe, to be brave and push yourself to win the battle.”

“If you give yourself up and not prepared to fight, whatever treatment they give you or whatever options they offer you, you will not be ready for it and cope with the side effects, complications and difficult times that will for sure come your way.”

“I've learned that from my experience and consultants and doctors actually have discussed this with me and praised my belief and approach.”

“My success has been based on that. I've carried on believing that something will cure me and in my case that something was the clinical trial.”

Mr Baldachino was frank that although he had very little hope of survival since the moment he was diagnosed, he kept on pushing himself and kept motivated.

“In some sense I was lucky that CUN Pamplona did offer me different treatments, procedures and ultimately a clinical trial, in other words they didn't give up on me,” he said.

He said people should “never lose hope”, but believed that you have to earn the right to have hope by keeping fighting for a treatment or a surgery or a procedure or a clinical trial to work on you and win the battle to beat cancer.”

“What really motivated me is that from the very beginning I wanted to carry on living,” he said.

“Some people, surprisingly or not, have actually told me they lost that motivation once they were diagnosed but you've got to be motivated and want to carry on living and not give up on yourself.”

“I wanted to carry on living and I wanted to see my sons and my daughters achieve their goals in life and be there with them, I wanted to be there for my wife, Tamara, and see us continue to grow as a family.”

Mr Baldachino added that family is what has been the most important to him.

“I've been able to see and enjoy my family grow up because I had a young family when it happened and within these 10 years so many things, important things, that I wanted to see and enjoy have actually happened,” he said.

He described how pancreatic cancer is a “very difficult and very aggressive cancer” with an “extremely low survival rate”, which has taken the lives of around 60 people in Gibraltar over the past eight years.

He said statistics show that pancreatic cancer survival at five years is around 8%, with this dropping to 1% at the 10 year mark.

He feels privileged to be one of the 1%, still here after 10 years.

“I am always happy to share my story and if I can in any way inspire anyone to carry on fighting and to believe that makes me even more happy ” he said.

“Lots of people in the first years I was diagnosed approached me saying ‘well done, I know you keep fighting and because of you I have kept motivated and fighting my own battles’ this motivated me to have shared my story many times and to continue to do so.”

“I am conscious I am one of the privileged few for being here after 10 years of being diagnosed stage 4 pancreatic cancer but I know that I am here today because I believed, I never gave up, I was brave and I never lost hope. Hope gave me that necessary strength to keep fighting.”

“We at times don’t realise but it's very powerful to many who have lost hope or don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel to hear about that winning the battle against cancer is possible, even such a deadly cancer as pancreatic cancer.”

He highlighted that pancreatic cancer is difficult to diagnose due to diagnose its symptoms that can be easily mistaken for other illnesses.

Symptoms to look out for include abdominal or back pain, weight loss, changes in bowel habits, diabetes, fatigue, nausea, loss of appetite, and jaundice.