Pancreatic cancer diagnosis

Editor's Note: Dick Bott, president and CEO of Bott Broadcasting Network, interviewed his dear friend Dr. E. Brandt Gustavson, then-president of the National Religious Broadcasters Association, shortly before Gustavson died of pancreatic cancer last May. Below are excerpts from the candid and inspirational interview.

"During a cruise, I was getting weak and jaundiced--a yellow color in my skin. We went to the ship's doctor, and he recommended that we go ashore at St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. We went ashore and checked into the hospital, where the gastroenterologist said, `My advice to you is that you not continue on the cruise, but go back home and get medical attention.' He said that there was an obstruction of the pancreas.

"As much as my wife, Mary, and I hated the idea of leaving the cruise that we were on with dear friends, we went home. When we arrived at the Ronald Reagan Airport in Washington, D.C., we called a good friend in D.C. who had performed surgery on me in 1985, and we gave him the results of the blood tests that we had carried with us from St. Thomas. After reviewing the test results, the doctor got in touch with his top aide and said, "Get him admitted to the hospital immediately!" He could tell from the tumor index that things were not right.

"The next day on Saturday morning, I had an MRI. Mary was told first, but he didn't want her alone with me until he came back to tell me what had happened.

"When the doctor tells you the unvarnished truth of what the situation is ... in my case it was inoperable cancer of the pancreas and liver. He said, `I think you probably have two months and maybe a little longer to live.... I would not advise you to get chemotherapy, because all you will do is be sick until you go home.'

"After hugging us, he left the room. I looked at Mary, and she was crying a little, as was I. I tell you, Dick, the peace of God came over my life in such an enormous abundance that every vestige in my body was filled with his grace and sufficient strength. That is the way it has been now during the three weeks since the diagnosis."

Bott then asked Dr. Gustavson how he dealt with the fear of death.

"I have walked with the understanding that to be out of this life is to be present in a new one, and it is instantaneous. I don't think that I will be walking through deep, dark valleys. Some of my family and dear friends may be grieving, but I am not going to be part of that. I know that when I absent myself from my natural life, I am then living my eternal life."