Can you believe it’s been ONE YEAR since Alex Trebek shocked us all by revealing his cancer diagnosis??
When the Jeopardy! host first told fans he had stage four pancreatic cancer, we know many already started their mourning — after all the survival rate is so incredibly low.
But Alex is a survivor! And he may not have all the answers (remember, he has the questions in front of him!), but in his latest health update he has some hard-earned wisdom to impart to his fellow survivors and anyone else struggling through something like this.
He begins:
“The one year survival rate for stage four pancreatic cancer patients is 18 percent. I’m very happy to report I have just reached that marker.”
Unfortunately while it’s good news it’s not all easy to hear…
“Now I’d be lying if I said the journey was an easy one. There were some good days, but a lot of not so good days. I joked with friends that the cancer won’t kill me, the chemo treatments will. There were moments of great pain, days when certain bodily functions no longer functioned, and sudden massive attacks of great depression that made me wonder if it was really worth fighting on.”
Wow. It’s so hard to think of the ever-positive Alex Trebek thinking that way. Luckily it didn’t last! He continues:
“But I brushed that aside quickly because that would have been a massive betrayal. A betrayal of my wife and soulmate Jean, who has given her all to help me survive. It would have been a betrayal of other cancer patients who have looked to me as an inspiration and as a cheerleader of sorts, of the value of living and hope. And it certainly would have been a betrayal of my faith in God and the millions of prayers that have been said on my behalf.”
We love that fighting spirit! The 79-year-old finished:
“You know, my oncologist tried to cheer me up the other day, he said, ‘Alex, even though the two year survival rate is only 7 percent,’ he was sure that one year from now the two of us would be sitting in his office, celebrating my second anniversary of survival. And you know something? If I — no, if we, because so many of us are involved in this same situation — if we take it just one day at a time with a positive attitude, anything is possible. I’ll keep you posted.”
See the emotional update in full (below)!
Related Posts
Source: Read Full Article