Pancreatic cancer stories, told patiently.
Project Purple Podcast follows pancreatic cancer patients and survivors through diagnosis, treatment, surgery, recovery, and the emotional work around scans. The conversations are plainspoken, patient, and often deeply practical.
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Project Purple Podcast is a survivor-focused interview series about pancreatic cancer and the lives reshaped by it. The show moves at a measured pace. Guests are not rushed into tidy lessons or easy endings, which gives the conversations space to cover the confusing parts of diagnosis, treatment, recovery, and recurrence fear. Recent episodes follow people through Whipple surgery, digestive enzymes, clinical trial searches, scans, weight loss, fatigue, painkillers, major surgery, and the slow process of rebuilding strength. The medical material can be specific. The language stays human. A guest may talk about vomiting after meals, walking after surgery, draining fluid, or trying to live with uncertainty, and the conversation usually pauses long enough to make the moment understandable. The show also returns often to family, friends, gratitude, faith, exercise, and the small decisions that help people keep moving. It has a nonprofit spine. Project Purple’s work in research, patient aid, runs, walks, group fitness, golf, and other events sits near the front of many episodes, making the show feel connected to a larger patient community rather than a detached health program. The interviews are warm but not glossy. They allow fear, hope, grief, humor, practical advice, and medical frustration to sit in the same room. Listeners hear from survivors in places as varied as California, Florida, Iowa, Minnesota, Colorado, Staten Island, and Ireland, which gives the series a broad, grounded feel. It is especially useful for patients, caregivers, families, fundraisers, and health listeners who want real accounts of what pancreatic cancer treatment can demand. The show’s strength is its patience. It lets people tell the whole journey, including the messy middle.
Made for: For pancreatic cancer patients, survivors, caregivers, families, and supporters looking for grounded stories from people who have lived through diagnosis and treatment. It also suits listeners interested in patient aid, cancer research, and nonprofit health communities.
What sets it apart: The show blends survivor storytelling with Project Purple’s direct nonprofit mission, keeping patient experience, research support, and community action in the same frame. Its interviews are longer, warmer, and more granular than a typical health-awareness segment.
Project Purple's vision is a world without pancreatic cancer. We have two initiatives: to help pancreatic cancer patients and fund research. With a variety of partners in the health and fitness world, our podcast will deliver an exciting look into our own background as well as the worlds of medical treatment, marathon running, crossfit, nutrition, stories of survival, inspiration, hope, and much more.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Detailed survivor interviews connect pancreatic cancer treatment and recovery with the physical, emotional and practical realities patients face.
Project Purple Podcast gives pancreatic cancer survivors room to recount illness at the scale it is lived: diagnosis, treatment decisions, surgery, recovery and the uncertainty between scans.
Whipple scars and scan anxiety get room to breathe when you need more than a motivational poster.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A survivor's healing bubble opens into a thoughtful conversation about fear, information, and recovery.
Project Purple Podcast brings host Dino Varley together with pancreatic cancer survivor Mark Allen Ruge for a clear, grounded conversation about fear, information, and the routines that helped him after diagnosis.
Matt Cassani makes pancreatic cancer recovery feel concrete through the daily work of eating, moving, and healing.
Matt Cassani's pancreatic cancer recovery lands hardest in the practical details: after Whipple surgery, filling a plate could leave him uncomfortably full, walking was difficult, and digestive enzymes became part of keeping nutrients in his system.
Pamela Deasy's story makes pancreatic cancer's physical and emotional toll feel close, practical, and hard to tidy away.
Pamela Deasy's account of pancreatic cancer stays rooted in the body's most frightening betrayals: weight dropping fast, cachexia making a walking stick necessary, and stairs taking on the scale of a mountain.
A pancreatic cancer survivor finds steadiness in family, uncertainty, and miles on her bike.
The episode frames life with pancreatic cancer as a daily practice of attention: staying present while scans, treatment decisions, and uncertainty keep crowding the edges.
John Fox explains how his Whipple and testicular cancer surgery came to be done in one operation.
John Fox tells Dino Varelli how two surgeries ended up in one operation. He was facing surgery for aggressive testicular cancer while considering a Whipple procedure. Varelli asks why he did not wait on the Whipple, which was not necessarily urgent on paper.
A clear, advocacy-led conversation about fear, high-volume pancreatic cancer care, and decisions under pressure.
Pancreatic cancer care is framed as a test of judgment when families have little time and a lot of fear. Dino Varelli and his guest focus on the pull of familiar local care, while making the case that a high-volume center may be a better place to seek help.
A guest explains why cancer patients need room for difficult feelings, even when others mean well.
A guest recalls learning in June that she had pancreatic cancer, just before her wedding and honeymoon. She was told she had months. Dino Varley asks what it felt like to face that news while looking ahead to events she had planned to enjoy.
Small-town Selmer, told at table level.
Neuroendocrine cancer, explained from the pathology lab outward.
Reported stories of responsibility and its consequences.
Project Purple Podcast episode 312 follows Kellyanne O'Shea, diagnosed at 28 with stage four pancreatic cancer after ascites, a CT scan, and a six-liter paracentesis.
Dino Varelli interviews pancreatic cancer survivor Jon Fox on the Project Purple podcast, discussing his journey and the organization's efforts in research and patient support.
Tina Lucci shares her story of surviving pancreatic cancer on the Project Purple podcast.
Dino Varelli interviews pancreatic cancer survivor Tricia Hanna about her journey and the work of Project Purple.
Dino Verli interviews pancreatic cancer survivor Alice Frati about her journey and the work of Project Purple.
Dean O'Reilly interviews Summer DeCoste about her battle with pancreatic cancer and Project Purple's record-breaking year.
Dino Varelli interviews Dr.
Don Belisle, a 69-year-old endurance athlete from Evans, Georgia, tells Dino Verley how a third pancreatitis attack on December 26, 2024 led to an IPMN cyst diagnosis.
Mark Allen Ruegg says a September 2020 vacation from Lake Havasu to Los Angeles was followed by an emergency-room visit, a misdiagnosis of pancreatitis, and a later MRI that found a 4-centimeter tumor in the head of his pancreas with spread to his lymph nodes and liver.
Matt Cassani describes going from stomach pain and immediate bathroom trips after eating to yellow eyes at work, then an ER admission that led to a pancreatic mass diagnosis in May 2025.
Dino Verli interviews pancreatic cancer survivor Rhonda Vavrek about her journey and the work of Project Purple.
Dino Verli interviews pancreatic cancer survivor Andy Lyons on the Project Purple podcast.
Dino Varley introduces an interview with pancreatic cancer survivor Rita Krueger on the Project Purple podcast, discussing her journey and the organization's efforts in research and patient support.
On the Project Purple Podcast, host Dino Verrelli speaks with Pamela Deasy of Cork, Ireland, about her pancreatic cancer diagnosis on December 7, 2018, after months of symptoms dismissed as perimenopause.
On the Project Purple Podcast, host Dino Verrelli interviews Ann Dirksy, a Colorado software developer and endurance cyclist diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer in March after months of unexplained fatigue and inability to eat more than a half cup of food at a time.
John Fox, diagnosed with testicular cancer at 37, learned through staging scans that he also had a separate stage-one pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor.