After announcing he had been diagnosed with stage-4 pancreatic cancer last year, “Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek has beaten the odds at the one-year mark.
In a video update posted Wednesday, Trebek said he is one of 18% of patients to survive the first year after the stage-4 diagnosis.
Now as his fight continues, he plans to be among the 7% of patients to reach the two-year mark.
“Now I’d be lying if I said the journey had been an easy one,” he said in the video. “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.”
Trebek’s doctors were stunned when they found he was in near remission of the advanced pancreatic cancer back in May 2019, but a few months later, he encountered a setback and resumed chemotherapy.
“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.
Trebek has stated he will continue working on Jeopardy, which he has hosted since 1984, while he is still able and if his skills haven’t diminished.
“My oncologist tried to cheer me up the other day … He was certain that one year from now, the two of us would be sitting in his office celebrating my second anniversary of survival,” he said. “If we take it just one day at a time, with a positive attitude, anything is possible.”
