Tears for Trebek
- A contestant on Jeopardy broke out in tears while meeting host Alex Trebek
- She says she knew she would lose the trivia show, but seeing him was worth it
- Trebek was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer in February 2019, and is currently undergoing treatment
In a clip shared on Jeopardy’s Instagram page, Kelly, a contestant, admitted to Alex Trebek, 80, that she already knew she would lose the game show when she signed up, but decided to take the risk because she wanted the opportunity to meet Trebek face to face. Honestly, who can blame her?
Read MoreAfter the show, Kelly talked to Jimmy McGuire of Clue Crew, the ambassadors of Jeopardy, about her touching moment with Trebek. She shared that she decided to put herself out there and be on the show after she heard rumors he might retire. Even though Trebek has stated he plans to be Jeopardy’s host as long as he can, Kelly didn’t want to miss the chance to finally meet the beloved figure. In the end, Kelly doesn’t regret her decision one bit.
Alex Trebek’s Cancer Journey
Trebek has been battling stage 4 pancreatic cancer since February 2019, and is proving he’s a true warrior by still undergoing treatment while filming new episodes of Jeopardy. He's been going through an experimental immunotherapy regimen for treatment, and it’s been showing immense promise. He’s already reached a huge milestone by celebrating his one-year anniversary since the diagnosis, where the survival rate is typically only 18%. Since his treatment has been going well, Trebek and his doctors expect that he'll surpass the two-year mark as well.
Even though Trebek is fighting through the disease, that isn’t to say he hasn’t had his bad days. While announcing he had surpassed the one-year mark, he admitted there were days that were so difficult he considered giving up, but pushed through.
"I'd be lying if I said the journey had been 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 really was worth fighting on," Trebek said in a video. "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."
Pancreatic Cancer Treatment
New research has helped pancreatic cancer survival rates improve, but it’s still considered one of the most difficult cancers to successfully treat. If the tumor is small and localized enough, then patients will have a better chance to be declared in remission, but since pancreatic cancer is difficult to screen for, it’s often caught in later stages where the disease has progressed.
Chemotherapy is often given to patients, but doctors can run into a problem the stroma. A stroma is a barrier that surrounds the cancer cells and prevents the chemotherapy from breaking through and taking effect to fight the cancer, so administering proper medication can be difficult.
"Think of pancreatic cancer as an oatmeal raisin cookie and the raisins are actually the cancer cells, and the cookie part is actually all the stroma around it," Dr. Allyson Ocean, Medical Oncologist at Weill Cornell Medical Center, explains to SurvivorNet. "And imagine having to navigate through all that stroma for a treatment to be able to get into a cell to kill it. So that's why the treatments just really aren't good enough to penetrate the cancer. But we're improving, we're getting better treatments."
Dr. Allyson Ocean explains why pancreatic cancer is so hard to treat
Even though pancreatic cancer is a difficult one to face on, Trebek is beating the odds during treatment, and serving as an inspiration to the nearly 57,000 people who will be diagnosed with the disease this year.
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