Ernesto Tono was diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer. At the same time his mother passed from a similar disease. Despite the challenges, he keeps busy on small projects around his house and hosting friends for parties.

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My name is Ernesto Tono. I’m 47 years old. I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in October November of 2008. Ever since then, the cancer has spread to my liver and to my abdominal cavity.

Ever since we started it’s been a lot of hospital, At first, they tried to open my bile duct, because it was clogged. That was what gave us all the first that I was sick. I was going to University of Maryland at the time and they perforated my gallbladder by mistake. it was said that something like that could happen. And one week later after my stent was put in, I was in the hospital again with a lot of pain and they thought it was pancreatitis. But it was not. They did not realize that it was my gallbladder Two weeks later they changed it. I came over here to see Dr. Cameron. And Dr. Cameron wanted to do more tests on me before anything. And he realized that morning that I was doing peritonitis. so he had to open me up. And take my gallbladder out. He took my gallbladder out and I had to stay in the hospital for about 15, 20 days.So it delayed the whole process. Then I started chemo in January 5th and some radiation. And at the end of that period, like 20 days later, it actually had shown that my tumor had grown bigger. Dr. Cameron, he said it went from resectable to nonresectable. So I had to go back to chemo and see how we could shrink it. Otherwise he was not going to be able to operate. That was like a very cold shower. That was the first time I ever really felt like, Oh my God, what is this? I was so confident. Everything was going to be all right. But I still said, okay, let’s go with it. We started doing the chemo.

The chemo did not work. It hasn’t shrunk. The pancreas has actually not gotten bigger. But like I said before, it had spread to my liver and to my, abdominal cavities. We’ve tried several treatments and they have not worked. But I’ve dealt with this on a day to day basis. I have tried not to stop my life. At first I had more strength. I did the basement in my house. I even did all the electrical work myself. And I had two people come over and help me with all the putting up the walls and everything. So I always had a little project going on because that gives me the strength and, traveled to Colombia to visit my mother a couple of times. She died from the same cancer I had last year. So I had to go to her funeral also, like in September. We did another project in my house. I did the base for a jacuzzi. So we put it outside, so I had to gravel and do all that. I did it myself. Gardening. I really like gardening, so was just, always trying to make the garden good and planting things.

I’m always keeping myself busy. I’m going to work as much as I can. it makes me feel good to see pretty plants outside or everything. I’m a little anal about things, so I like everything like neat. So having the garden neat makes the house looks better. We have a bunch of evergreens and some evergreens that are colorful. Angarden also gives me, something to do and makes me feel good. Peaceful I bring a lot of people over too. I like to have company. There was a time, three months, that I could not eat anything. I had to be fed through a line here, a PICC line.

And I couldn’t eat anything because I had I perforated. Something in my stomach was perforated. So they were trying to cure that before I could eat anything. And even then, I was hanging out with my bag, I was just doing everything, going to Lowe’s, and going to here, and cooking for people even though I couldn’t eat.

And I just love having people over in my house. I’m very lucky that I have a lot of good friends. They’re all very helpful. I’ve had people from all over the world call me and even visit.

They come and visit. Some people just came over from Columbia for the weekend just to see me. And everybody’s been like that, from Ohio from everywhere, from Florida. So they come over and visit this day with me and that feels good. It feels good and sometimes I get sad, but it’s not that many times.

I’m at peace with whatever is happening. Spiritually, and my spirits are really good. I feel like it’s early for me to have to go, because I know this is a fact. This is not a matter of how, but a matter of when it’s gonna happen.

Right now, it’s just we’re trying to do palliative things, just to keep me alive. And with the least amount of pain, that I haven’t had pain, thanks God. my faith has also kept me going. God has always been very good to me in my life.

And I feel that this is not something bad He’s doing for me. He’s actually giving me time to, reassess everything in my life. prioritize what’s important. Get ready for everything, have everything in my state and everything ready for my wife and family, my office and line and, I own an insurance agency. It’s been a good way of getting ready. and for grievance, I think also. It is gonna be good for my daughters. I have two daughters. One is 17 and the other one is 15.

And I feel that it’s gonna be good for them because they’ve, they seen me through several stages. It’s not gonna be sudden, so they’re gonna accept it a little bit more, even though they say they will never really accept the fact. But I think this year is gonna be my final year because I’ve really become weak. I’ve lost about. 70 to 80 pounds. I started out with 175. Now, today I’m 94. and my muscle mass is what’s actually lacking. So I don’t have the strength not even to go up the stairs as fast as I did before. Now I get fatigued till I have to catch my breath when I’m going up the stairs.

I don’t know if you know about paellas. It’s a Spanish rice with a lot of everything you can put on it. From chorizo to fish and lobster and whatever you want to put in it. I like Mediterranean food too, so I like cooking quibdes. I like cooking it’s a rice made with chicken and almonds and based with cinnamon, which is, it’s really good. grape leaves, tabbouleh, that kind of food I love. I cook that for my family too, my friends. Sometimes we have regional dishes like sancocho is something that we do.

Is it like a soup with a lot of local like plantains and yucca and yume and stuff like that, it’s really good and we like it a lot. Everybody was like, wow, you did this and you haven’t even tasted it. And you say what can I do? But it’s just, it’s just getting ready. For me, it’s not always the, where you’re going, but how you get in there.

I love it. we usually don’t take two months to invite people over. We’re from Latin America, and we’re more like, what are you doing tonight? If you’re not doing anything, let’s do something. It’s less formal.

I wish I could help more. I could do more, because a lot, people are just doing a lot for me. It’s amazing how people have just turned out and, try to help in every which way they can. I feel overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by people I never knew how much people cared for me. I guess I have, I don’t know, this is happening to me, and it’s happening too soon or whatever. People tend to feel bad about those things and I’ve tried to keep in touch with all my friends and tell them how much I love them, how much I really care about them.

I met with people from University of Maryland. I went to University of Maryland. So we finally, in Facebook somebody found me in a website that I have nationwide and they told me, why don’t you go to Facebook? And then we started getting together with a lot of our friends from school. Even my fraternity brothers also have surfaced all of a sudden from nowhere.

So We’re in touch. And that that’s good. I just feel blessed. And the treatment that I’ve received here in this hospital, it’s been amazing. The nurses here, oh my god, they, I never knew that there was people that could treat people and be as nice as they can be, always. From going to the hospital, when you go to the hospital, you feel like you’re at a five star hotel. Because they give you the royal treatment. They really care for you. They really talk to you. they’re not condescending. you can feel that it’s true what they’re feeling. So that’s really good too. And here, Margaret, Linda, Dr. Jalovac. All my doctors have been outstanding. I cannot tell you how good they make me feel. How personal the relationship is, and how much I know they care for what I’m doing and how I’m doing. The other thing that I like to do a lot is travel. When I find the strength to do it. And the time, because everybody’s working or in school or whatever, but I try to schedule. Like last year, I told you, I took my whole family down to Cartagena, and we stayed there for a week visiting my mother, and she was sick, so you’ll want it. And my brother decided to also go, he lives here in Bethesda as well. We were, the whole family was there with them, we had a really good time. And I’ve tried to do, little trips. We went to New York. We stayed at a really nice hotel, we went to plays, we went to, We went everywhere, the Empire State Building, the Guggenheim Museum, we just took those tours in one of those open decker buses. It was freezing though. I’m not a big musical fan. One show is enough for me. They wanted to see another one, but it was only a weekend, a long weekend that we took. We didn’t have much time to do it, a lot. Now this weekend we’re planning on going my wife has a beach house in Daytona Beach.

So they so I’ve worried about even that. And I’ve written everything down. I have like pages and pages of stuff for them to know everything about what’s going on. Where the accounts are, where the money is, because you show them that, there are instructions on how to get into every website, how to, Get the money, how to do this, how to transfer, how to, what she has, where her CDs, where everything is. And now we’re trying to sell. We have two properties that we’re trying to sell one and put that money into this mortgage. So she doesn’t have to move away from the house that she has and that she’s going to be comfortable with whatever I can leave her. I Will say The game is not over until the last inning. I’m at bat. I’m gonna be here. Trying to fight this until, until the body says stop. Because I haven’t thought about it. Sometimes, some nights, when I feel really bad, I say, I’m gonna pull the plug. I’m just not gonna keep on the chemo. But I think that’s giving up. Know I’m not gonna get better, but the more I have here Now, cause spring is coming, it’s like a Saturday for me.

Saturday is my favorite day of the week. Everything smells good. I love spring, so it’s gonna be just great. everything has turned out great. Good. Everything I’m asking, God has given me. And he’s given me enough time to try to finish everything up, so I’m happy about that.