Toe-to-toe battle with a killer

(WPRI) - A Little Compton man is fully engaged in a fight for his life while also trying to draw attention to a quick killer that claims three out of four within a year that they’re diagnosed.

Peter Washburn takes 90 doses a day of various supplements on a naturopath regimen that also includes massage, acupuncture and a Tai Chi style exercise called Qigong.

Chemo-therapy was not killing his pancreatic cancer.

“Every two weeks that I'd take it, I'd be sick for five days,” Washburn tells us in this week’s Street Story. “I've already lost 20 pounds. I can't lose any more.”

He still consults his doctors but believes his natural mind-body approach is working as he closes in on the end of his second year with the disease.

“Seventy-five percent die in the first year,” he says as he sorts through dozens of bottles that hold things like fermented soy powder, pomegranate plus and poly MVA.

Events like the Purple Strides Walk last May and this weekend's National Vigil for Hope that’s already turning the crown of the Statehouse lavender are vital for pancreatic cancer awareness. But, Washburn points out that six times as much money is spent of breast cancer research.

“I believe in the breast cancer fight as well. I just know that more attention needs to be directed toward a type of cancer which kills almost as many.”

So, as he prepares to wash down another day of doses, he's fighting for attention for something he knows is trying to kill him and thousands of others.

“Researchers can find cures. Researchers can find early detection. But you need the dollars.”

If the statistics don't change, 45,000 people will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer next year and 37,000 will die.

The vigil at the Statehouse is this Sunday.