A Navy veteran thought she was having a heart attack. A trip to the emergency room found something else.

While having an unusually quiet day at home, Navy veteran Mary Jo Burkhard began experiencing strange symptoms that she thought might be signs of a heart attack.

The 71-year-old knew that men and women had it different symptoms of sudden cardiac events. Burkhard was determined not to ignore potential warning signs. The pain in her back and chest were alarming enough to warrant a trip to urgent care, and when she threw up the painkiller she was prescribed, she immediately went to the hospital.

Doctors in the emergency room ran tests, including a CT scan. They discovered that he didn’t have a heart attack, but there was a three-inch cancerous tumor on his pancreas. After two days of anxious waiting, he was diagnosed with stage II pancreatic cancerone of the deadliest forms of cancer.

“I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to die,'” Burkhard said. His first thoughts were of his children and grandchildren.

Dr. Alexander Itskovich, medical director of oncology services at Statesir Cancer Center of New Jersey, was quick to offer reassurance. Her cancer was still treatable, he said, but would require surgery to remove the mass, and radiation and chemotherapy to remove as many cancer cells as possible. It would be a long journey, and even if all went well, Burkhard would have to be watched closely for the rest of his life. Burkhard said the same determination that helped her in her military career helped her get through the grueling treatment program.

“If you can get through training camp, you can get through anything,” Burkhard said. “It changes your mindset about how you do things, it makes you stronger and it makes you a fighter. So I was a fighter. I was fighting.”

Treating one of the deadliest cancers in the US

Pancreatic cancer is the third leading cause of cancer death in the United States, according to the National Cancer Institute. “It’s very difficult to detect this cancer early,” said Dr. Suneel Kamath, a gastrointestinal oncologist at the Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Center who was not involved in Burkhard’s care. Early symptoms often include vague stomach upset, abdominal pain and acid reflux, which Kamath said are easy to ignore or chalk up to milder illnesses.

Cancer is often found only when a person seeks treatment for a different problem, Itskovich said. In Burkhard’s case, the pain he was feeling probably wasn’t even related to pancreatic cancer, Itskovich said, but his decision to seek medical attention led to the early diagnosis. His cancer was diagnosed as Stage II. Most people with pancreatic cancer are not diagnosed until the disease reaches stage IV, Kamath said. By this time, the cancer has spread throughout the body and treatment is unlikely to be an option.

For patients like Burkhard who can still be treated, speed is key. Within days of being diagnosed, Burkhard began chemotherapy. The sessions were every three days for more than four months. The treatment took a toll on her body: The 71-year-old often struggled with fatigue and sometimes had to call her children to help her get around the house. But it worked: scans showed the chemotherapy had shrunk the tumor to half its size. This meant Itskovich could operate and remove the remaining mass.

During surgery, he found that the mass was attached to many other organs in Burkhard’s body. It took more than nine hours, almost twice the length of a typical surgery, but he was able to remove the entire tumor. The surgery was followed by more chemotherapy, as well as radiation therapy. Burkhard spent several weeks in the hospital, and while her recovery from surgery was difficult, she was actually more upset about the pureed diet she had to maintain.

“It was the only thing I could eat,” he said, calling the semi-liquid meals “worse than a military diet.”

Enjoy life with “no evidence of disease”

After completing treatment, Burkhard underwent another round of tests to confirm that the intense regimen had worked.

“I was so scared during the CT scan and waiting for them, waiting for the answer,” Burkhard said. “I was just worried. I knew (Itskovich) was taking everything, cutting everything, and I knew the radiation had killed the microscopic cells. I knew all this in my head, but my heart was saying, ‘OK, can anything happen.” That was scary.”

Scans came back clear, but Burkhard’s wait isn’t over yet. He will have a CT scan every three months for the next three years, and then every six months for the next two years. The disease can recur, Kamath said, and stage I and II pancreatic cancer has a five-year survival rate of only about 44 percent. Because it’s only been a short period, Burkhard can’t be described as cancer-free, but Itskovich said he currently has “no evidence of disease.”

Although the coast is clear, Burkhard says he plans to enjoy his life. He has returned to his community service and Veterans Affairs activities. She spoke at a special flag-raising ceremony held in honor of Veterans Day at the hospital where she was treated. Soon, she will travel to Indiana for a month for a long trip to see her grandchildren. Whenever she returns to the hospital for scans, she tries to bring positivity to the staff, who she said helped save her life.

“I hug the doctors, the nurses. I hug everyone in the hospital,” he said. “Everyone gets a hug.”