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Teona Ducre
Written By: Julia Brabant, Updated February 2026When Time Wasn’t a Given, Teona Ducre Didn’t Waste It
Time isn’t always on one’s side after a Stage 3 pancreatic cancer diagnosis, and Teona Ducre knew better than to take it for granted. Now, almost a decade after her own diagnosis, she’s watched her kids grow up, and she’s also used her time wisely by advocating for earlier detection, better education and improved outcomes for African Americans, who face higher rates of pancreatic cancer diagnosis and mortality.
Don’t assume patients with serious illnesses don’t have a voice, or don’t want to have a voice. We patients must have a voice in everything from treatment to whether we decide to have living wills. Don’t be afraid to use that voice and be your own best advocate.
Just 41 when she developed a series of relatively “vague” symptoms, including fatigue, unintentional weight loss and ongoing lower back pain, Teona eventually sought treatment at a colleague’s urging, visiting a local urgent care. The urgent care doctor thought she had an ulcer and prescribed her Prilosec, but when her condition worsened and a fever accompanied it, she returned to the doctor. This time, the doctor saw a mass and sent Teona to an oncologist to learn more.
The oncologist felt that, given Teona’s age and her lack of jaundice or family history, the mass probably wasn’t cancerous and told her to come back in a couple of weeks if her symptoms continued.
Teona, trusting her and her mother’s instincts, sought a second opinion at Emory Winship Cancer Institute, where doctors diagnosed her with inoperable Stage 3 adenocarcinoma. While adenocarcinoma accounts for the vast majority of pancreatic cancer cases, Teona’s case was unique in that her tumor was in the tail of the pancreas, rather than the head, and pushing against her spleen. As a result, the hospital’s tumor board ruled Teona out as a candidate for surgery, and she wasn’t having much luck finding clinical trials, either.
Facing limited options, Teona started chemotherapy using FOLFIRINOX, responding well enough that her doctors reconsidered surgery. She had a distal pancreatectomy and splenectomy in November of 2016 and underwent maintenance chemo from January of 2017 through May of 2017 to help prevent a potential cancer recurrence.
The adjuvant chemotherapy introduced a new side effect: mouth sores, something Teona didn’t experience during her first six months of treatment. Yet, the added side effect, along with an infection related to her port and the high cost of oral chemotherapy treatments, led Teona to stop the maintenance treatment before finishing the full year her oncologist initially recommended.
While Teona last had chemo in May 2017, she continues monitoring her health closely. She sees her oncologist once a year for bloodwork, and she works with a gastroenterologist to manage ongoing digestive issues stemming from her cancer and surgery. Otherwise, she lives a happy, fulfilling life, and she’s also had a chance to enjoy some major life milestones she once thought she’d miss.
She watched her two young children grow up and graduate college, and she’s also used her time and background in journalism and health care to embrace new priorities, like advocating for African Americans affected by pancreatic cancer and shedding light on the health disparities that often contribute to late diagnoses and poorer outcomes.
“I made that a big priority in my life in a lot of different regards,” Teona said. “I’ve been able to capitalize on becoming a stronger advocate than I was 10 years ago.”
Teona’s efforts include raising awareness about symptoms, participating in radio and TV interviews and speaking publicly about health care inequities and biases affecting African Americans. Teona also works to share information about genetic and genomic testing, which can provide insights about genetic risk factors people may have that elevate their risk for cancer.
“This is a critical first step and should be immediate,” she said, of undergoing genetic and genomic testing. “Some insurance companies cover the testing, too.”
In Teona’s case, testing revealed the presence of a BRCA mutation within her own tumor, which could potentially steer treatment options if her cancer ever came back.
Teona also educates about, and pushes for, advances in early detection – a significant challenge in pancreatic cancer care. She served as a guest speaker at a conference hosted by the Piedmont Cancer Institute in Atlanta, which recently opened the state’s first standalone Early Detection Pancreatic Cancer Clinic, and sees a lot of promise in continued efforts to catch the disease in its earlier stages.
While Teona feels encouraged by the future of early detection efforts, she also acknowledges that there are areas where the medical community could stand to improve. For starters, she wants to see more doctors present clinical trials to their patients as viable treatment solutions, rather than last-ditch efforts. She also wants to see overall patient sensitivity improve, particularly for African Americans, who are more likely to encounter implicit bias and a lack of cultural sensitivity in medical care.
“A lot of doctors still say, ‘Go home and get your affairs in order,’” Teona said. “More doctors need to be well-versed in the opportunities that can help patients not only survive, but thrive.”
Teona knows she’s fortunate to have had the care team that she did and plans to continue to advocate for the pancreatic cancer community – albeit from a new address. She and her partner are gearing up to move from Atlanta to Los Angeles, where Teona plans to continue offering up candid advice to people facing the same condition she did.
“Don’t read the statistics,” she said. “They serve a purpose, but they’ll scare you. While our survival rate barely breaks double digits, someone makes up the part of the population that survives – and that could be you.”
She also hopes to see conversations about survivorship shift away from “luck” and toward a more intentional effort to improve outcomes across the board.
“I’ve been incredibly fortunate, but my hope is that we’re getting past people being ‘fortunate,’ and that there’s a strategic effort to better patient outcomes,” Teona said. “We shouldn’t be ‘lucky’ at this stage of the game given the emergence of AI and all the technological advances that are now available to get people beyond ‘luck.’”
Teona’s cancer has remained in remission since her surgery in late 2016.
