Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams
"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams" was delivered on September 18, 2007, at Carnegie Mellon University's McConomy Auditorium. Over 450 Carnegie Mellon students, staff members, and friends of Pausch attended the lecture, leaving only standing room as this was more than the auditorium could hold. Pausch later commented about this in an interview, saying "A couple of hundred people in a room, looking and listening and laughing and applauding – hopefully at the appropriate times – that gives a lot of validation to my kids that a lot of people believe in this, and a lot of people who knew me believe that I did my best to try to live this way." The first introduction of the speech as well as the series of lectures was given by Indira Nair, the Vice Provost for Education at Carnegie Mellon. Nair first explained the university's aforementioned lecture series called "Journeys", in which eight more professors from Carnegie Mellon would share their insights on their professional and personal experiences over the years.
Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams
At the time that Pausch gave the lecture, he was a pancreatic cancer patient. In an interview, Pausch stated that he had felt bloated, and learned that he had a cancerous tumor when doctors performed a CT Scan to check for gallstones. He then underwent pancreaticoduodenectomy surgery (or the "Whipple procedure") to try to stop the growth of the cancerous tumor in his body, which later proved to be unsuccessful. The doctors removed his gall bladder, parts of his small intestine, a third of his pancreas, and parts of his stomach, and proceeded to begin an experimental radiation treatment that could possibly increase his chances of survival for another 5 years to 45 percent. Pausch began the radiation treatments in November 2006 and stopped in May 2007, and felt that he was in good health after finishing. In July and August, tests conducted at Johns Hopkins University showed that Pausch was free of cancer. However, in late August of that year, Pausch informed readers of his website that his cancer had returned, saying: "A recent CT scan showed that there are 10 tumors in my liver, and my spleen is also peppered with small tumors. The doctors say that it is one of the most aggressive recurrences they have ever seen." The doctors estimated Pausch had three to six months of good health left to live.