In January of 2014, after reporting a certain “recurring abdominal pain” to my primary care physician, I underwent a series of diagnostic tests that would ultimately lead to an extremely complicated surgery involving the pancreas, gall bladder and small intestine. Imaging tests revealed a large cyst in the head of the pancreas, but even after the cyst had been biopsied, there was no way, short of surgery, to know definitively whether it was benign or malignant. As much as I would have liked to say, “no, thank you” when I was told surgery needed to be done, there was really […]