Veteran's Affairs Plus W/ David L. Washington

Announcer
0:00:00
This is a KUNV Studios original program.

Wesley Knight
0:00:04
You're listening to special programming sponsored by Making Moves Life Coaching Services. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz & More,

Dave Washington
0:00:14
the University of Nevada Las Vegas, this is Vetchers Affairs Plus on 91.5. Good day Las Vegas, this is Veterans Affairs Plus on 91.5 Jazz and more. I'm Dave Washington your host and I always say I'm excited when I have a certain types of guests on but I'm really excited about this one because it's my surgeon from MD Anderson Dr. Jessica Maxwell which I'll have her to introduce herself shortly after I make a couple of announcements here and also our middle daughter Angel the feisty one if you would.

Dave Washington
0:01:19
And then I want to acknowledge once again the family in terms of condolences to Melvin Givens, who recently passed away and he is a long time resident of Las Vegas. With that, I want to introduce Dr. Jessica Masquill. And this is ladies. One thing, it was very important that I got you, Doc, and I didn't even know it, kind of how God works. This is Pantreatic Cancer Month that I wasn't even aware of until I held his daughter April

Dave Washington
0:01:48
told me, she said, oh, this is pancreatic cancer. I said, well, I've invited my surgeon to be on the show, and she's agreed. So hello, Doc, how are you? And please give just an indication of a little bit about your background, about your background to our listening audience, if you would.

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:02:05
Yeah.

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:02:06
Hi, David. And hi, Angel. Good to talk to both of you again. It's a real honor to be able to be on the show and have a chat. I'm Jess Maxwell. I am a surgical oncologist.

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:02:18
I'm originally from Iowa, so I grew up in the Midwest. Went to public school there, played clarinet, played soccer, had a pretty average upbringing, all things said and done but got interested in science kind of as I was moving through high school and things

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:02:45
like that. So decided to go to the University of Wisconsin in Madison for undergrad, studied immunology and

Dave Washington
0:03:04
microbiology there and thereafter kind of

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:03:10
had a decision point, did I want of decided that working with people was more my passion? So that's what led me to medicine initially.

Dave Washington
0:03:01
Wow. And you were inspired by just the thought of wanting to work with people versus just lab testing. That's interesting.

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:03:10
Well, I think it was a combination of things. I had a personal connection to medicine. I lost someone who was very important to me to cancer when I was younger and that certainly led me to think a lot about the pursuit of medicine and the

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:03:35
ways in which medicine can have a positive impact on people's lives going forward and so there was sort of that personal crusade but that can only sort of take you so far and you have

Dave Washington
0:03:57
to kind of decide if the other

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:04:01
components are fit within your wheelhouse as well and they did seem to for me. Excellent. Angel, give a little background on yourself if you would So as you said, Daddy, and hi, Dr. Maxwell.

Dave Washington
0:04:25
I am the middle daughter of David and Marcia Washington. I am a crime prevention specialist for the North Las Vegas Police Department, but in my fun time, spare time, you know, I am the most favorite middle daughter, but I also

Dave Washington
0:04:30
Excellent.

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:04:31
Wonderful.

Dave Washington
0:04:32
Excellent. So, Doc, I think it's important for you to share, if you would, in as simple terms as possible, whipple surgery. And when I found out about it, that that's what I would have to have, I'm like, oh, my goodness, and I started studying it. And I'm like, you need to stop studying, man, because you're going to start running.

Dave Washington
0:04:55
When they get ready to lock you down to the table, you're going to be trying to get up and run. So would you explain it to our listening audience, Doc, please?

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:05:05
Yeah, absolutely. So a Whipple operation is the short name for the longer term, which is pancreatoduodenectomy. And what that means is that it is a cancer surgery for problems in the head of the pancreas. So your pancreas is an organ that helps you digest and

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:05:43
regulate blood sugar and it's kind of long. It sort of starts on the right side of your belly and it stretches all the way over to the left and the head is tumors or problems in the head of their pancreas, they need to have an

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:05:49
operation called a Whipple and what that means is that the patient will ultimately have part of their stomach, the entire first portion of their small intestine called the duodenum removed, part of their bile duct which is the

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:06:15
tube that connects the liver to the tissue has to come out because of the way the blood vessels connect everything. So that gets removed and then we have to do the second part of the operation is the reconstruction and so what that means is that we take a piece of the small intestine and we sew it to the pancreas so that you can digest with the help of the pancreas again. We sew it to the bile duct so that bile can drain into your GI tract again,

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:06:31
and then we sew the small intestine to the stomach so that you can eat, so all of your digestive juices can mix with your food.

Dave Washington
0:06:38
Lord have mercy. It's making me want to sit here and start crying. I went through all of that because I remember when you guys first took me in, when the anesthesiologist, he said something about horses. I think I said horse and next thing I knew I was coming out of going into recovery and I'm like, oh my, what happened?

Dave Washington
0:06:58
And Marcia said, you said, I didn't see your mom or my mom and dad and blah, blah. Why are you looking for dead people? And I said, well, from what I've been told, if you see dead people, they're coming to get you. So it was a good thing that I didn't see anyone. But I can tell you, I felt so comfortable. And I felt comfortable because when me and Marcia met you, I asked you, was you religious? Or were

Dave Washington
0:07:24
you more of a spiritual person? You said, well, more spiritual. I said, well, me too. Even though I'm a Christian by, you know, by baptism, but I knew I would be in good hands. And then when it was because, you know, I kept telling my family, and Morris said, you need to stop saying that. But I was trying to convince myself with taking this 5,000 milligram THC. Another friend, John, he turned me on to a vegetable and fruit smoothie.

Dave Washington
0:07:54
So I'm taking this stuff and I'm thinking, man, when I get down here, you're going to say, no, you're good. And when you say, no, you still have to have surgery. I just immediately flipped my mind. Ain't no need to me trying to get stressed about this and being anxious. I just said, OK, got to do what we got to do.

Dave Washington
0:08:11
And I was just so comfortable. And as I've told many friends, like when I went for fire chief in the city of Las Vegas, that's the first. And this time, probably that's the second time as athletes talk about it. I know you probably as an athlete as well, you'd be in that zone. I was in that zone that, hey man, everything is good. And I say, I'm not in control of anything.

Dave Washington
0:08:32
Nor, in fact, is my surgeon. She's a great doctor, I know, because she told me she could handle this. It would be okay. And I know that God is in control of everything. So I was very, very comfortable. But when I came out, I put up my three fingers and Marsha just looked at me because I'm thinking

Dave Washington
0:08:52
my goal is to get out of here in three days. I think I wound up staying. I think I wound up five or six days and Angel, Amber, with your fellow, they're going round and round from their own experiences with some major surgery. And I'm trying, I guess you would say, instructive dialogue that we were all respectful, because I'm listening to her, also listening to what you had told me as well.

Dave Washington
0:09:25
And I got to deal with all this stuff in my head, listening to my daughters. And I said, well, it's something that, it's been done now. Now it's a matter of, you know, the training and, you know, and getting my, the scar, getting all that healed up and stuff. But it was really something to go through that. And I have a lot of advice for people. And I've already been sharing, and I

Dave Washington
0:09:49
will continue to share that these folks, they know what they're doing. And from the previous show, we had a registered nurse who was working from home and our other daughter, Amber, on the show. And we talked about what you had told us.

Dave Washington
0:10:03
You said you told Marsha, there's going to be times where he's going to be snapping. Cause you know, even though I tried to keep from allowing myself to get depressed or anxious about what was going on, but it was, and I never asked God, why me?

Dave Washington
0:10:19
Cause I'm thinking in my head, why not me? And I've tried to be a good soldier. And like I've told you many, many times, doc, and I'll let you get back in, that I want to be, and I'm still trying to be a good patient because I think that's important to the healing process, Doc.

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:10:32
Yeah. Well, I mean, I'm just going to make sure your audience knows you've been an excellent patient.

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:10:37
A hard-headed patient. I have a question for the doctor, if Dr. Maxwell does not mind. So, as you I'm sure know, we went through a series of misdiagnoses here in Las Vegas, questionable diagnosis which is what landed him at MD Anderson Houston. And so we had not had like really first-hand experience with pancreatic cancer but I do have an old co-worker of mine, her mother passed away, it's been I think two years from

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:11:24
pancreatic cancer and I think from diagnosis to her passing was maybe a year and a half or so and I know hers was obviously at a later stage. My question to you is based on the things that you hear or you know the general public

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:11:40
when it shows symptoms is when it's probably in a later stage but thankfully for my dad although he seemed

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:11:53
to be symptomatic based on his weight loss and all of that you were able to catch it early and still perform the Whipple. Is the Whipple not available to patients when it's caught later in stage? make the right diagnosis right away even with really smart people trying to do the best

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:12:12
that they can with the information that they have. But it was really fortuitous that that diagnosis was made at that time because you're absolutely right that surgery is what we call a local therapy. And what that means is that it only addresses the problem in the pancreas, right? All that I can do with my knife very simply is to, you know, cut out the tumor and the surrounding tissue. And it doesn't do anything for any of the cancer cells that may have escaped from that tumor.

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:12:45
And we know that that can happen pretty frequently in pancreas cancer. And as you say, it can happen for the patient that may not even know that it's happened, right? The diagnosis may not even have been performed but the problem in those cases and the reason that surgery is then not typically helpful

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:13:12
is because once the little cancer cells have escaped the pancreas, your problem isn't in only the pancreas anymore, right? Now this is what we call a systemic Surgery can only help, really, except in very, very specific situations when the cancer has stayed in the pancreas. And, you know, beyond that, even if the cancer has stayed in the pancreas, sometimes an operation isn't possible

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:13:35
because of the way that that tumor wraps around blood vessels that are in the area. You know, there are some blood vessels we just, we can't sacrifice, meaning remove. And there are some that are even too small, even if we, you know, can sometimes remove them. If we can't rebuild them or reconstruct, then, you know, that's another situation where an operation just may not be possible.

Angel Washington
0:13:56
Mm-hmm.

Dave Washington
0:13:56
Look, Doc, one thing that Angel and I really appreciate her, even though I think rather than a crime prevention specialist, she should be a detective. She's always researching. So she went on. And once again, this is Veterans Affairs Plus on 91.5 Jazz and More. I was just looking at my producer director. He's looking at me like, you better announce what this show is, dude, because you're all just rattling right along. So anyway, Doc, what Angel has done, she's gone on to a, it's like a chat group of folks who've had

Dave Washington
0:14:32
pancreatic cancer. The Whipple. The Whipple in particular, and it has been a tremendous help to me in terms of her just feeding me information. I'm not even on it, but she's talking with these people

Dave Washington
0:14:43
and they've given us some great advice to include how to eat. But anyway, thoughts on that in general, Doc, in terms of just listening to what other people, and everybody's, one thing I've learned is everybody's issue is different.

Dave Washington
0:15:00
We all deal with it differently.

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:15:02
I think, you know, you'll hear physicians, a lot of us tell our patients, you know, don't get on Dr. Google, you know, at various stages of your cancer journey. But I think that support groups and hearing other patients and

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:15:27
families experiences are completely different from that. Like I don't think that that really falls into that category. I've had a lot of patients who have found tremendous value and peace in that because you're absolutely right.

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:15:54
Regardless of the relationships that you may have with your surgeon, you know everybody thinks through these things differently and the way that you think through your process and your journey changes as well as time

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:16:00
passes and as more you know events accumulate along that path and so I

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:16:09
think it's really great to be able to reach out and hear you know other

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:16:16
people's experiences, some that have gone well, some that may not have you know through that journey. I think it's important to hear all of those different perspectives and I suspect that there's a lot of kind of tips and tricks as well, right? Because this whole journey is just that, right?

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:16:18
It's not a single moment in time. Your Whipple wasn't just a single moment in time or single hours in time, right? It was the lead up to it, it was the operation itself, it's the recovery and you're still recovering, right? And that recovery is, you know, it takes a lot. It takes more than just, you know, you and your hard-headedness. You and your family and probably a good number of your friends and the rest of

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:16:46
your support group and, you know, it's important and I think that those support groups, these online groups or other resources like that, are probably, they kind of become a part of your whole recovery process as well.

Dave Washington
0:17:00
That's true. That's true. In fact, folks from all walks of life, they have helped me and my family in so many ways that you cannot imagine. And it gives me strength. And I tell people all the time, well, when they say, I didn't want to text or call you, I didn't want to bother you.

Dave Washington
0:17:16
You're not a bother. You're an inspiration to me to hear from people that care about me and my family and this journey because it and I tell people now the journey isn't over. And particularly as I when I try to eat and I can't taste my food, I'm like, man, this is man, this is worse than the surgery. I can't.

Dave Washington
0:17:36
And I know they'd be on me, Dr. Maxwell. You gotta eat, you gotta eat. I know, I know, I try. So now I'm doing sometimes three to five, sometimes two, sometimes six times small meals. And it's working because I didn't tell Marsh,

Dave Washington
0:17:54
I got on a scale today and I know it's not the most accurate at home, but I was at 135. I had got down to 130. So I'm inching back up and I know that I'm trying to do the right thing. And another thing I wanted to ask you, Doc, in terms of people who come down with it, is there any particular age group or it varies just based upon what happens in their body,

Dave Washington
0:18:15
based upon, I would imagine, because I'm seeing what after you guys assign me a dietician. I said to the dietician, 85, 90, and I won't cuss, Wes, but of this stuff that I eat, we shouldn't be eating." And she said, that's right. I'm like, oh my goodness. So just another, so in terms of numbers, age wise, it just varies all over the place.

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:18:42
Pancreatic cancer most commonly affects people later in life. So, you know, 65 and beyond. We would consider early onset to be 45 or younger and while that happens and we tend to be picking up on it in younger and younger patients unfortunately. Most commonly and this is true with most cancers, it is a disease of people as they age and part that's because of just what cancer is.

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:19:11
Cancer is your normal cell going rogue, right? So it accumulates enough changes over time that it causes it to be abnormal so that it grows really quickly and then that's when it causes problems is when it kind of crosses that line between a little bit abnormal to very abnormal. And you can imagine that in terms of accumulating those changes, genetic mutations, etc., that

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:19:38
happens with time so it tends to happen in older people. So I wanted to jump in real quick and just touch on what the doctor said and as it relates to Google when he first got his diagnosis I was driving myself crazy

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:20:04
with Google which is obviously frowned upon but once we found out that the Whipple choice for him rather, which is when I went on Facebook and I found that group and they have been tremendously helpful. I

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:20:19
think it's called Whipple Surgery Survivors, I think it's what it's called, but these people are from across the world and everybody's experience has been different, but they're all here. I mean, along the way and it hasn't always

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:20:32
necessarily been related to the pancreatic cancer because a lot of these people have been older in age too that have the pancreatic cancer but the information, the suggestion for Creon and other pancreatic enzymes

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:21:03
that they've suggested. I'm like, Daddy, you need to ask about Creon like you need to hurry up and figure it out because crazy. But you know even what they take and the dosage they take and when they take it, I mean everybody's experience has

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:21:07
just been super different which is

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:21:12
also like intriguing to me and I guess it's just the way that the body is made up right every individual person is made is based on or I kind of like is a reflection of how they react to the surgery and what happens with them. Yeah

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:21:16
right. You know as you've noticed there are some commonalities that kind of go through right, there's a lot of people on Creon, there's a lot of people experiencing certain kinds of symptoms etc. But at the end of the day

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:21:38
everybody you know you have some people that hardly need any, you have some people that are hugely affected by one pill versus others that need six pills during you know and that's exactly So it's great when you can kind of hear other people's experiences and know that

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:21:47
just because you haven't hit on the perfect combination of some aspect of your care immediately, like, you know, you can make adjustments and those things, you know, may make a big difference.

Dave Washington
0:21:56
Yeah. Well, I can tell you, Doc, we appreciate you so much and your expertise and thank God you selected this field as a specialty to go into. So what advice would you give to those who are out there in our listening audience? And again, this is Veterans Affairs Plus on 91.5 Jazz and More, and I know that there's a number of veterans who listen to the show as well as other people in our community in terms of What to look for and I know we talked about weight loss and other things that could occur

Dave Washington
0:22:33
that will throw your body off that you need to be recognized and I was just Grateful to God that we recognize this early on and and I think it's one of been the saving graces for me that it was

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:22:44
Diagnosed early versus later. Yeah, I think you know in that specific scenario that the thing that everybody needs to think about carefully and families too is you know even if the first diagnostic workup doesn't turn anything up you know if you really feel

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:23:23
like something isn't right you know your body better than anybody. Right. You know the people around you know you hearts in the right place and their brains in the right place but just couldn't make the dots connect and that

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:23:26
happens sometimes but if you really feel like there is something wrong, you got to be persistent just as you guys were. You know and just make sure that until you feel comfortable with

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:23:47
somebody saying there's nothing wrong, you

Dave Washington
0:23:51
know then you got to keep your head down and you got to keep

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:23:42
institutions have. Right. And so, you know, you got to trust your gut.

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:23:46
That's my best advice for life.

Dave Washington
0:23:49
Yeah, and to your point, Doc, and Angel mentioned the quote, unquote misdiagnosis. One thing that I found is you guys at MD Anderson, you have a higher level of, I don't want to call it machinery, but whatever.

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:24:05
Equipment. Equipment.

Dave Washington
0:24:07
Equipment that pinpointed the thing and said, yes, it's there and here's what it is. And so all those things, because see, after we got the first diagnosis and they said it was benign, me and Marsha said, oh, we're going to get a second opinion because her sister has been down there with you guys and she lives in Houston. You guys have been working with her for 12 years." We said, well, that's where we're going to go.

Dave Washington
0:24:33
I'm glad we made that decision because my personal doctor told me, he mentioned MD Anderson as one of the top ones. It was easy for us to decide. As Angel mentioned, we can't be messing around because you mess around and not getting something done in terms of having a more critical diagnosis, if you will, well, not necessarily critical, but another look at what's going on inside your body.

Dave Washington
0:25:00
So I am grateful to God that he led us that way to get that done. And so, Doc, one of the things I asked you during our early conversation was, what's the percentage of complete recovery? And you told me about 15%. And I said that I plan to be, and I still do, I'm going to keep harping on that, I plan to be a 15%er.

Dave Washington
0:25:20
Absolutely.

Angel Washington
0:25:21
I plan on that too.

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:25:22
And let me ask you something.

Dave Washington
0:25:23
How is your son doing with all this athletic stuff going on?

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:25:31
He's doing great. So in a proud mama moment, he actually played the Star Spangled Banner on his electric guitar for his school's Veterans Day program.

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:25:44
So that was really cool.

Dave Washington
0:25:45
And cool.

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:25:46
Happy belated birthday to him.

Dave Washington
0:25:47
Yeah, happy belated birthday to him. So we got about another three and a half minutes or so. So any final thoughts? And Angel, a question to Doc, and then we'll let her have the final remarks. And I should tell you guys very quickly, next month I plan to have Antonio Farkas, who used to be a movie star, and then also Chiefs Kevin Taylor and Oscar Jones, who just recently

Dave Washington
0:26:11
held a function down in Chandler, Arizona, for some retired firefighters. I plan to have them on the show next month.

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:26:17
That's great.

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:26:18
Well, my final thought, I just want to say...

Dave Washington
0:26:20
Go ahead, Angel.

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:26:21
I just want to say thank you to Dr. Maxwell. We appreciate your expertise and your wonderful care for my father because it was extremely stressful time for us and he's still stressing us out

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:26:50
when he doesn't speak. But I want to speak

Dave Washington
0:26:57
for the family and just say thank you. We truly appreciate you and your work. Well it's certainly been my pleasure to take

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:26:52
to an ongoing relationship.

Dave Washington
0:26:54
Absolutely. We're working. Marsha, she checks the MyChart, which I don't even know how to get into it, but they've already started getting me lined up for further appointments. As I said, when you told me I've got to come down there for the next two months on a quarterly basis, I'm like, that's what I got to do, that's what I got to do, because certainly if it

Dave Washington
0:27:15
comes back, I know your goal and the goal of all the medical staff there is to get on top of things. And tell your nurse that I said hey, and I hope that her captain husband is doing well in his position as Houston Fire Department there. But doctor,

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:27:32
Oh, daddy, and doctor was asking you how long you've had your show.

Dave Washington
0:27:35
Oh, I've had it about two years now.

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:27:38
That's wonderful.

Dave Washington
0:27:39
Yeah. And speaking of that, Doc, you can get it on, you can go to the podcast, wherever you get your podcasts, and look at KNUV 91.5 Jazz and more. And on top of that, when the show airs this Saturday, I'm going to, it goes to podcast about an hour or two later, I will send it to you to make sure you get the show. And you can pass it on to some of your colleagues.

Dave Washington
0:28:01
But I really appreciate you for coming on to the show because sometimes when people – you talk about going on a radio, they go, oh, I don't think so because I had a young lady that was – she was a pancreatic cancer nurse. She had said yes and when I made contact, she – I don't feel comfortable, but you did a great job. And again, my goal here is I mentioned to you when I asked you to come on, with this

Dave Washington
0:28:24
platform I want to try to help as many people as I can. I think that's a God charge. If you have a platform to do things to help others, we should. So thank you so very much.

Dr. Jessica Maxwell
0:28:34
Absolutely. It was my pleasure.

Dave Washington
0:28:36
All right. This is Veterans Affairs Plus on 91.5 Jazz and More. I had the wonderful Jessica Maxwell from Indiana. She was my surgeon and also my middle daughter who should be a detective angel on the show. So thank you Wes for garnering us through the process today. She was my surgeon and also my middle daughter who should be a detective angel on the show. So thank you Wes for garnering us through the process today.

Angel Washington
0:28:55
you

Transcribed with Cockatoo