Episode 484: Bob Jansen’s Remarkable Journey Beyond Pancreatic Cancer

Welcome to Cannabis Health Radio, where we share powerful real-life stories from people around the world who are using cannabis as medicine. The goal of this podcast is to raise awareness of the healing potential of cannabis and is not intended as medical advice. And now, here's your host, Ian Jessop.

Welcome to the Cannabis Health Radio podcast. I'm Ian Jessop. Before we start, I want to thank Swan Apothecary for supporting Cannabis Health Radio and helping make episodes like this possible. Swan Apothecary is committed to producing thoughtfully made, lab-tested cannabis products because when it comes to your health, Quality matters. If you'd like to support the podcast and explore their products, visit cannabishealtheradio.com and use the code cannabis health to receive 15% off. Our thanks once again to Swan Apothecary. Now to our guest. Bob Jansen is living proof that pancreatic cancer does not always get the final word. After enduring chemotherapy and making the unconventional decision to use cannabis oil positories, he's been given the all clear for several years. Bob and Tammy join us from Iowa to reflect on their journey from diagnosis and fear to healing, hope, and gratitude. Now, this episode is for anyone facing cancer, caring for a loved one, or searching for stories that remind us why hope matters. Thanks for joining us again, guys. It's been since June of 2024 we last talked to you. How are you doing?

Doing well. Doing well.

Bob, when were you first given the all clear?

I believe that was in June of '22. Yeah. It was about, yeah, 2 to 3 months after my surgery. I had the Whipple procedure in May of '22, and then my first scan was 3 months after, and they gave me the all clear from there on.

So this summer it'll be 4 years then.

Yes. Yep. I had to have a CT scan every 3 months for, I believe, the first year, if not more. And then they went out to 6 months, and now I am scanned about once a year now.

Once a year. Good. Now, the Whipple procedure, I looked that up and can you explain exactly what it is?

Yeah. So they— I had a tumor on the tip of my pancreas and it was pushing against my bile duct. So what they do is they kind of clear a pathway and they wound up removing part of my pancreas, part of my stomach, part of my duodenum, or they took my duodenum. I believe I'm pronouncing that right. They took my gallbladder and part of my lower intestine. And the surgery was on a Thursday morning and I was home by Sunday. Evening, like 3 days later, which is not—

that's not, not usual.

No.

Well, usually the patients are— I considered myself very healthy, even though I had cancer, right? But yeah, I just stayed very busy, very athletic. I golfed a lot. I bike ride. I put miles and miles on my bike throughout this whole, whole thing. Went to the gym quite often. And anyway, the surgeon, she contributed my quick recovery to the fact that I just stayed very healthy throughout all of this.

Now, Bob, when you look back at your diagnosis, did you ever imagine you'd be here today?

No. No.

Yeah, I think that, you know, when you hear the fact that you've got pancreatic cancer, just you're overwhelmed by fear.

Yeah, it was very surreal, I guess. I mean, I had things that I needed— I felt I needed to take care of, including talking to, you know, our financial consultant, making sure our affairs were in order. And I even talked to our pastor, asked him, you know, to do like celebration of life service, but in preparation that he wouldn't, you know, assuming I wasn't going to make it.

God, Bob, you got a lot of years left. Come on, buddy.

But at the time when he was diagnosed, also our family had just buried my dad. And he had the same. So we didn't have to look it up. We knew the statistics. Yeah, we think even possibly the symptoms.

I mean, we knew the symptoms, but, but what were, what were some of the symptoms?

I had a— well, throughout the summer of 2021, I actually, I had COVID in like April or May. Of, of 21. And from there on, I had, uh, like, an unsettled feeling. Not necessarily pains in my stomach, but just like, uh, like there was a football in my stomach throughout the entire summer. And, uh, I was asking, you know, guys at work, what are you doing for probiotics? I, you know, I tried several different things and finally I had gone to the doctor because I realized, I mean, there must have been more to it. And that's when I was diagnosed.

I guess the lucky, the lucky thing is that it had not metastasized, right?

Yes. Yep, that's correct. I was fortunate with that. Tumor being at the tip of my pancreas, that it basically— it was like clogged plumbing. It kind of blocked my digestive system and my liver. I wound up getting—

Well, his bile duct was clogged, was blocked, which was the blessing. But actually, within date, like, he waited a week. He made the appointment. He waited a week. And then by the time— a week to get in. And by the time he got in, we had a birthday party for our grandson that night. I think he turned 4. And I looked at his eyes and I saw they were yellow, but I didn't want to see it because I knew what that could possibly mean. And I knew he had a doctor's appointment on Monday morning, and this was a Sunday night. And I told our kids, your dad made a doctor's appointment. Something's wrong. He must be dying because he didn't— he was not a sick man and he never goes to the doctor. I mean, he goes to the doctor for a physical, but he doesn't— we, we do not have sick days. That's not in the cards for his life. He, he works. He's tough. And I don't know anyway. But yeah, his eyes were yellow and I thought, I can't see that. My daughter also saw that, who also was with my dad, you know, throughout his whole journey as well. And so both of us knew that was dangerous and scary, but neither one of us could even verbalize it, you know. So one Monday morning when he went in, they started talking about his gallbladder, and that's when he came and found me after the appointment. And he— I could see he was crying when he walked across the yard. And I thought, oh my gosh. And he said, it's just my gallbladder. And he, and he was sobbing. And I was like, you were really scared. And he's like, 'cause he didn't really tell me that. I mean, we, we were all scared, but nobody really verbalized it. 'Cause what were the chances that it would be the same thing when it's not even his dad, it's my dad. And like, yeah, you know, it's genetic, which it's not genetic anyway, but Anyway, so yeah, it was rough and it went quickly from gallbladder to— I mean, any doctor that would have seen him could not have missed that his bile duct was not working because he was very jaundiced and it was in his eyes. So we didn't have much time to get a— get that bile duct open. So by Wednesday morning, he was in surgery and the surgeon told me when he came out, oh, it's pancreatic cancer. And I was like, you don't have a biopsy. And he's like, I've, I've seen this enough and you need to get to another hospital and get a biopsy, which we then waited a month for. But all in the Lord's plan. And he was taken care of the whole time and his pain was essentially gone the minute they put the stent in. So.

But you had to wait a month for the biopsy. What was that like? Emotionally?

Oh, it was horrible. We did— the major surgery was done out of town at a university hospital. And, you know, it's some of the stuff that they missed different things like my local hospital had to fax information off to them. Well, they didn't receive it, they didn't follow up, and days went by, and I, I had to follow up. I had to make the phone calls just to make sure the information got across, just to even get an appointment. Um, you know, so yeah, and then of course I was a little bit frustrated. Yeah, you know, that, uh that they would goof up something that, uh, that simple.

Yeah, understandably.

Yeah, yeah. But yeah, it took about a month, and then this was during the time of COVID so anytime you'd go, uh, up there, you had to do a screening like 3 days before. So, you know, we would make an hour trip up on a Sunday afternoon, come back for my Wednesday so I could have the screening done for my Wednesday appointment. So yeah, it was a lot.

Now, Bob, after your procedure, your Whipple procedure, you underwent at the time, I believe, about 12 chemotherapy treatments.

I had done that before.

Before. Okay.

Yep. Yep. I started in November of '21 and I was finished by April. I did 12 treatments and I did an oil before I went in just to calm and relax me just because, I mean, it was an all-day affair.

Yeah.

And they plug in, they'd hook a bag to you and you'd have to keep that on until a Friday morning. So yeah, that was, that was probably the worst part of it all.

But when you, when you were taking the cannabis oil for chemo, my understanding is that helps you a lot better than people who do not take cannabis oil. The chemo. Is that, uh, is that a fair statement?

I would— I, I can't say. I mean, I, I didn't do it without, um, just— but it, it was very— to be able to sit there all day long and go through all of those— the drugs that they gave you, it would change, you know, like the neuropathy in your fingers and toes, and then you'd have this slurred speech and all this stuff, and it was kind of a scary deal. So yeah, um, if anything else, it helped me help my head get through it all.

So he's talking about oil that he took.

Um, well, that was just a, like, a tincture oil, a tincture oil, but that I just took before I would go into the doctor's office for the chemotherapy, but I did the suppositories twice a day, every day, even throughout after the surgery. And, you know, you could talk to any doctor. They would say all of the things I did probably didn't have anything to do with it, but You know, I'm, I'm still here. So what— once you're—

did your healthcare team know that you were taking the cannabis?

Not right away, but eventually they, they had figured it out. Yeah, we had told them.

We didn't tell him until we were 100% done. He was deemed cancer-free until the pathology report came back. When the pathology report came back, it was 37 lymph nodes. And she was like, remarkably— I mean, she called us on a Friday night. Our surgeon was top-notch. And she called us on a Friday night. She said she thought she had gotten all of it. But, you know, you don't know what those are going to come back as. And she had 37 lymph nodes clear. And then she said— and this is where it just got really interesting. The tumor was like it was dissolved.

Unmeasurable.

Unmeasurable and dissolved were her words. And to me, who's been down this road already with a loved one, because she's 15 to 20-year surgeon of pancreatic cancer, that to me spoke that she thought that was rare. That didn't seem normal at all. So we still keep in contact with her. Every time he's cleared, I message her and let her know that he's cleared, but we have not had a verbal face-to-face conversation with her to tell her what we did because I, you know, just hasn't happened. But our local doctor does know, and his immediate response was, "I wonder if that's how you got through 12 of those chemo treatments," and that he never had to stop. Which typically people's labs, blood counts, everything comes down and, you know, they're killing. But he powered through. He worked. I mean, he didn't miss work. He, he went into work with a bag on.

Wow.

10-hour days. But he's also really tough. I mean, he sometimes would take Wednesdays or his day off Thursday. He would stay home in bed. So maybe a day. And then Friday he would work a half a day and go in and they'd disconnect him and then he would sometimes come home and take a nap. But—

So when you're going through this, this health crisis, how did it impact both of you as a couple in your relationship? Or did it?

It definitely— impacted it. Yeah, big time. Yeah, I do believe it brought us closer together. But as time goes on, you know, you seem to forget stuff like that. But definitely it brought us a lot closer together.

You guys have been married a long time.

Yeah. Yes. 33 years. Yeah, we were just entering, you know, pa and nana hood and we've been abundantly blessed by a lot of children very quickly. Our kids got married pretty young and they had babies fast and we had two— when he was diagnosed, we had two sets of twins born in an 8-month period. Our son had twins and our daughter had twins. So I was living a really fun Nana life and he was working hard and I still work as well. But, you know, it was devastating. And, you know, we were, you know, we were just— it was rough. And but I would say it presented itself in a way that we clung to each other instead of away. It was, it was harder to be upset over the stupid things in life. You know, you get in— after many years of religion, our house was empty a lot, and it was easy to just not pay attention to each other. But, um, I— you know, women are typically really good caretakers, and that was like— I knew that was my role. And, um, not that he always wanted me to be his caretaker, but he fit really well, and he enjoyed lots of I would give him pancakes on the bad week when he felt terrible. For whatever he would eat, I would give him. But then the next week he wasn't treated quite so nice because I would make him eat healthy again for a week. And we were blessed with a retired doctor that had cured somebody else's cancer. So we were also doing supplements as well. So between the oil and ultimately just God's healing on him. He is alive and he still takes pretty much a good majority of the supplements he was taking before. Now he just enjoys cannabis for, you know, anxiety or whatever.

Yeah, it's interesting how cancer can just completely change your perspective on life. And it's the question I like to ask every guest because my own self, I had a cancer scare a couple of years ago with skin cancer and Corrie diagnosed it and someone in the States diagnosed it and someone in Europe diagnosed it and they all said it was skin cancer, melanoma. And so I started using cannabis oil, and, um, over the months in thinking about it, you think, you know, you start to read statistics about how many people have died from it, and then your own mortality just, uh, stares you right in the face.

Yeah.

And the little things in life— I like to say this— the little things in life that you that used to really upset you or anger you no longer have any presence. Yeah, and you realize the importance of life and how you have to take care of yourself. Can you relate to that, Bob?

Oh, absolutely. I, uh, I still eat better than what I did before it all, and I'm very I still stay very active, the gym. I'm going to get the bike out, looking forward to that again this spring.

But I think the question of all, you know, also not trying to fall back into like, okay, we're alive, we're well, and we just took it for granted. I think we're both reminded a lot, and the yearly scans are just devastating, you know, like it about rips you apart. I said to the doctor, I don't really know if it's easier the further out you get or, you know, does that make it less stressful? And he did tell us that every 6-month interval is without a recurrence, which it's been wonderful. There's never been a recurrence. But, you know, with pancreatic cancer, you just don't ever feel like you can rest, you know? And even when you're looking for the statistical thing or you're not wanting to read something, it pops up. I mean, there's been a lot. I think I saw that you even posted there's a new— been a new study with pancreatic cancer, a cure for it. Now, will we ever see it? Who knows? But, you know, even when you're not looking for the statistic, it is there and you hear it and you see it and it takes you back. And one thing he just recently said to me, because we had a local guy that we knew and people come to us all the time. We've said from the beginning, if we can help others, this is why he's still alive. We will help whoever. So you give my name, you give my number, I'll talk to whoever wants to talk. Well, this guy didn't— he was already metastasized and I think he lasted 6 months. And Bob said, yeah, he had happened to have a stomachache that morning, which he typically never does. And he said, yeah, it's kind of a It's kind of one of those things where you think you dodged the bullet, but now you're wondering when the bullet's going to come back around and get you again. And, you know, I can't imagine— I'm sure that's how he feels, and that is how I feel sometimes. So you try not to fall back into the take-for-granted life. And one of the things that my son wanted was to just— for his little boys to grow up and know him. And those little boys are 5 now. 5 and 7, and you know, they were one at the time. They definitely know Pa now and have lots of things that would be memories, but they would not have then.

How often do you take cannabis oil now, Bob?

Um, talk to me, how often?

You don't, right?

Not as often as you should, right?

Right.

Oil.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, not as often as I should. Um, I actually— I haven't in a while, but I do have some left and will probably keep it on hand just because. And Maybe it's for somebody else. I don't know, but yeah.

Tammy, I want you to give him some tonight.

Hahaha, that was never my job. I told Corey right away I'm not doing that, you know.

Yeah, do you, uh, do you ever take it orally, Bob?

Oh yeah. Yeah, I still vape. I have done drops not that long ago, and I still do gum, but that's really, you know, thankfully I don't feel as though I just have the need for it like I used to, at least in the suppository form. Yeah, but yeah, as long as she'll keep letting me, I'll keep using it.

Well, we're putting you on notice right now that you have to continue using it.

I would not necessarily buy suppository, but I assume with his cancer too, they're re— they probably really don't have a lot of testimonies, you know what I mean? Like, we were kind of back and forth on how long do you continue maintenance dose in the sense of like suppository-wise, because nobody really had a, a good answer. But it's the same thing when we go see the oncologist, you know, what do we do at year 5? And he's like, well, I would like to continue to scan him. And I'm like, I'm sorry, that's radiation. We're not, we're not going to do that. At least just check lab work. And if something— we have watched his labs every 3 months now. I have, for the last 4 years, so I know what those labs look like. And if they move, then that's when we go to a CT scan. But literally, the doctor looked at us and he said, yeah, we don't have much data on that. And the reason for that is there's not many— he doesn't have anybody else still alive, which, yeah, hard to hear, especially when you feel like you have some solution. You know, I don't know. They don't want to hear it, but—

Okay, Bob and Tammy, if you could go back and speak to yourselves on the day of diagnosis, what would you say?

Oh man, I don't know. There's hope.

That's a good one. I mean, with knowing what I know now.

Yeah.

Are you asking?

Yep.

I mean, I mean, it's going to be okay. We can get through this. But I'll say again, like I was told back when I was first diagnosed, this is not something that you mess with. You do, you don't do some of the things, you do everything. If it doesn't kill you, it's worth a try.

Yeah, that's very good. What about you, Tammy? What would you, what would you say to yourself? Yeah, you had the tragic story of your father dying of pancreatic cancer.

I mean, yeah, so I feel like, um, if you could have told me then he would be alive and I wouldn't be a 51-year-old widow, I never would have believed you. I think I would say lean into your faith and trust God with every step. And we were thrown a lot of different things that we could attempt or try. And somebody had given me the advice to pick a path and stay with it. And so we did. And I think Yeah, just that there's actually hope in pancreatic cancer. And you do everything you can. You change your eating, you change the way you're living, you do all the things because you want to live.

Yeah, the interesting thing is diet plays such a huge role in dealing with a cancer diagnosis. And it's a question that Corrie would always ask if a person has— have you changed your diet? Was always a question she liked to, to ask people. And invariably, some people think they are on a healthy diet, but they're not necessarily on a healthy diet. And so, I mean, Bob, without a gallbladder now and you've had to change your eating habits. Are you healthier now than you were pre-diagnosis?

I, without a doubt, am. I'm just more motivated to eat better. I still, I mean, I work 4 12-hour days I'll pack a lunch and a dinner, and I always have a breakfast beforehand before I leave. And I'm very, very consistent on that. Very consistent on supplements, very consistent about— consistent with exercise.

Yeah, it's, it's really— it's, it's a tough— it's tough to eat I shouldn't say it's tough to eat a healthy diet in North America, but the food is, the food is terrible in North America. I mean, you hear, yeah.

Well, not just food, but also rest. I mean, that's the other thing that we don't tap into, especially in America. We run at, you know, 12-hour days, you know, and he worked 12-hour days and would drink a Red Bull and buy a Cadbury chocolate bar at the drugstore. And maybe some fast food. And the day of diagnosis, he started taking pictures and he has not stopped in 4 years. I mean, I have to make sure there's food in the fridge. But so my days of like, hey, it's an empty nest, we don't have to cook anymore. Yeah, that went on the wayside real fast. But too bad it takes a death diagnosis to change all of that. But the same is true with your faith and with your marriage and you know, all of the things. If you don't change from staring death in the face, then I don't know what would ever change you, you know.

Yeah. What does fully living mean to you two today, given what you've been through? And you've got— how many grandchildren do you have now?

Well, 14.

We will— 14. Yeah, we'll have 14 in the fall. We just found out our daughter's pregnant again, so she'll be number 14. Uh, 14, and they're 10 and under, and there is, um, 11, 11 boys. Oh, 10 boys right now. We don't know what the next one is, and we don't know if it's twins, so maybe it'd be 15. So fully living is, yeah, for us, like, they come twice a month for family dinner. We don't miss anything anything that we don't have to miss, we don't, we don't miss it. We see them often. We're blessed that all of them live in town except 3 out of town. One family's out of town. And we try to, you know, see them once a year if we can.

It's an interesting meme I saw the other day of a mother walking her child and the child says, "Mom, what's the meaning of life?" And the mother says, "You are." You, you are.

Yeah, 100%.

Really makes a difference when you see your kids grow up and they, they become parents and, and you become a grandparent. And with 13 now and 14th on the way, it's nice that they can go home and you don't have to take care of them all.

Absolutely.

This is way better. It is the best. People, your parents might have tried to tell you that and other people tried to tell you, but you just, it's the best.

Guys, I want to thank you for doing this. And May 10th is a big day. That's your 4-year Whipple surgery day. And, and in the summer you'll be 4 years clear. And, well, we'll come back when you're 10 years clear.

Yes. Yes. You gotta, we gotta live.

Yeah, we gotta live. Thanks guys, I appreciate this. Before we close, I just want to say thank you to our listeners around the world. Stories like Bob and Tammi's are why Cannabis Health Radio exists, to share hope, education, and real experiences that often aren't talked about anywhere else. If this podcast has helped you or someone you love, and you're able to support our work, we invite you to make a small donation to help keep these conversations going. There's absolutely no obligation. Your presence here already means the world to us. Every share, every kind word, and every bit of support helps us continue bringing you stories that matter. Thank you.

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