Raising awareness on World Pancreatic Cancer Day

It’s called a silent killer that often goes undiagnosed until it’s too late.

Today marks World Pancreatic Cancer Day, and the widow of a well-known Saskatoon man who died from the disease continues to raise awareness.

Bruce Gordon passed away at the age of 54 on Sept. 29, 2017. He had been diagnosed with terminal Stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

Gordon was a former captain of the Saskatoon Blades, a 28-year police veteran and had just become a lawyer when he died.

His widow, Chris Gordon, says they had always led healthy lives, exercising and eating right, so the diagnosis was a shock.

“(Doctors) thought Bruce had probably been living with pancreatic cancer for five years — which with most people there are no signs, no symptoms and then all of a sudden you get this diagnosis and it’s devastating for families,” she said.

Gordon says world-class research on pancreatic cancer is being done right in our own backyard.

“Right here at the University of Saskatchewan at the College of Medicine, we have a world-class research centre with world-class researchers and they collaborate with other researchers around the world,” said Gordon.

“They all network, so sometimes what they will find with pancreatic cancer research is ,’Maybe this won’t work for pancreatic cancer, but maybe it will work for breast cancer.’ ”

In Gordon’s memory, his family has established the #BeLikeBruce Memorial Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund at the U of S College of Medicine.