There’s great news for supporters of beloved “Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek: He still has no plans to retire.
“I’m going to keep hosting as long as I can and as long as my skills don’t diminish,” he recently told local Pittsburgh station WPXI.com.
Read MoreHe also expressed gratitude for all the support.
"The response from people all over America and Canada with regard to my current health situation has humbled me, really,” he said. “I had no idea that our show and myself had such an impact on the lives of so many people out there, making them feel good about themselves, entertaining them, not putting them down, having fun with them, and being able to encourage them to look outwardly in an optimistic and generous manner.”
He credited these messages with helping him remain optimistic.
“There are plenty of people out there who have been informed that they have cancer, that they have heart problems, that they have other serious diseases, like Parkinson’s, you name it. They have to deal with it and that’s what I have to do,” he said. “But they don’t have that great outpouring of warmth and prayerful thoughts coming from all over America, and that’s been a great help to me.”
And he encouraged others with the same diagnosis who write him to think of it as a journey they’re fighting together: “My response … has been the same for all of these people: let's both agree that we're going to become survivors.”
Alex Trebek Cancer Journey
Trebek announced in March 2019 that he had been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. He was initially treated with chemotherapy and had responded quite well announcing in May that some of his tumors had shrunk a significant amount, and the results were "mind-boggling." But in September, Trebek announced a reversal of those initial positive results.
In an interview with “Good Morning America,” Trebek shared that he would be undergoing another round of chemotherapy after recent tests revealed "sky-high" numbers, and he experienced really rapid weight loss. After Trebek responded so well to his first round of chemotherapy, his doctors took him off his regiment, hoping to start immunotherapy shortly thereafter so Trebek's own immune system could be rallied to begin killing off cancer cells. However, Trebek revealed that immunotherapy didn't do anything for his disease. And with the recent results, his doctors decided that more chemotherapy was needed.
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