When Diane Czaja first sought medical advice for the intense pain in her abdomen in January, her doctor speculated it might be her gall bladder.

But when an X-ray and CT scan confirmed the problem was actually a tumor on her pancreas, fears immediately turned to cancer.

The 64-year-old Highland resident wouldn't know for sure until the tumor was removed. As if the possibility of cancer on a vital organ weren't scary enough, Czaja learned the operation would leave her with a 7-inch incision extending from just under her breast to her navel and that her spleen also would have to be removed to enable removal of the tumor.

Living without a spleen, necessary for an effective immune system, would mean a constant threat of infections and regular antibiotics to help her body fight them.

When Czaja shared this news with her colleagues at The University of Chicago, where she works as a lead clinical coordinator in neurophysiology, they all pushed her to seek a second opinion. Thanks to a number of professional connections, she was eventually led directly to the pancreatic department at The University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago where she met Dr. Pier Cristoforo Giulianotti, an expert in both pancreatic surgery and robotic-assisted minimally invasive surgery.

Instead of the traditional 7-inch incision and taxing recovery that naturally goes along with such an invasive surgery, Giulianotti and his team removed the tumor by making five small incisions through which he operated the laparoscope and robotic arms of the da Vinci surgical system. Even better, he did so while preserving her spleen. Best of all, the tumor was not cancerous.

You could say Czaja won the trifecta of second chances. She laughs that doctors were playing show-and-tell with her stomach during follow-up appointments, amazed by the good shape it was in despite having major surgery.

Czaja's surgeons say she is the first patient in the United States and the 13th in the world to have this particular type of robotic surgery.

The trade off for Czaja is that with 45 percent of her pancreas removed, she now has diabetes and will eventually have to be on insulin. She has to take enzymes with every meal to aid in digestion for a total of 12 pills a day.

Doctors are currently monitoring two more cysts that have appeared on her pancreas, but they remain optimistic.

Refusing to dwell on what may be ahead, Czaja remains upbeat and active, traveling often and spending time with her husband, three grown children and seven grandchildren (with another on the way).

Czaja thanks her University of Chicago colleague, Dr. Helene Rubeiz, for setting in motion the string of experts that led her to Giulianotti.

"If I wasn't working at U of C, I would be in an entirely different situation," she says.

Diagnosis: Cystic tumor on her pancreas

Physician: Dr. Pier Cristoforo Giulianotti at The University of Illinois Medical Center in Chicago

Treatment: Giulianotti used the da Vinci surgical system, a minimally invasive robotic-assisted method to remove 45 percent of Czaja's pancreas through five small incisions rather than the traditional 7-inch incision.

What you should know: Czaja says her experience showed her the value of getting a second opinion.