5 for Good: MA volunteers support fight against pancreatic cancer

By Erika Tarantal

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    LEXINGTON, Massachusetts (WCVB) — Bruno Gallinelli and Richard Martin were both diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at 69 years old, and both died about two years later.

Now, their daughters are working together to carry on the fight against the disease.

Rebecca Serencha of Marlborough and Daniela Lang of Lexington help to run the Massachusetts chapter of the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, or PANCAN.

They are volunteers. PANCAN has staff on the national level, but Serencha said action at the local level depends on volunteers.

“When you hear the words pancreatic cancer, you get two reactions,” she said. “One is, ‘Oh my God, it’s one of the deadliest cancers. What am I going to do?’ and the second one is, ‘Huh, I’ve never even heard of pancreatic cancer.’”

In Lang’s house, the whole family works to raise awareness. Most recently, her children hosted a doughnut stand fundraiser. She said they sold the treats with a side of information.

“We had fact sheets, signs and symptoms,” Lang said.

Katie Torrance, who lives in Malden and is a pancreatic cancer survivor, said she didn’t have any obvious symptoms.

She said she only called the doctor out of an abundance of caution due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

She said her mother was gravely ill and she was determined to visit but had been losing weight and just felt off. That doctor’s appointment led to her diagnosis.

Torrance said she immediately looked up survival rates but then decided to stop searching the internet.

“The numbers were awful,” Torrance said. “I said, ‘That’s it, I’m never going to Google again.’”

PANCAN reports the five-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer is now 11%, an improvement of five percentage points in the past decade.

Full of optimism, Torrance said she is feeling good. After rigorous treatments, she said she is showing no evidence of cancer and wants to share her hope.

“I don’t need to know why I got this,” Torrance said. “I don’t need to know why I survived. I know I did, and other people need to know that.”

Purple is the color to raise awareness about pancreatic cancer. Serencha said she wears it every Monday.

She and Lang said they are now looking ahead to PANCAN’s biggest fundraising event of the year, the annual PurpleStride walk.

“It’s very meaningful to me,” Lang said. “I really want to try to make a difference to help other patients and families not have to go through what we went through.”

Find more information about PurpleStride and PANCAN here.

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