Friends & Family - This cause is deeply important to me. My battle against cancer is now in its fifth year and I am grateful for the chance to keep fighting. In August 2020, I was diagnosed with Stage 3 pancreatic cancer. Two weeks later I underwent the complex Whipple surgery to remove the tumor, followed by six months of chemotherapy. After one year of being in remission, the cancer had metastasized, and I needed to resume chemotherapy in early 2022. The chemo cocktail managed to keep the cancer “seeds” circulating in my system from germinating into a tumor. However, the side effects were brutal, and each session was more challenging to recover from.

Fortunately, DNA sequencing was performed on the tumor that had been removed during my surgery, revealing two cell mutations, which allowed the possibility for therapy to be tailored for specific targeting. In early 2023, I began an immunotherapy regime designed to boost the T cells in my white blood cells to help my immune system fight cancer cells, which inexplicably had lost the ability to do so on its own. My situation has stabilized while I continue receiving monthly infusions at Stanford. The side effects of immunotherapy are much more tolerable than chemo, allowing for a much-improved quality of life.

Per my oncologist, I am one of the few who have tolerated this particular form of immunotherapy for as long as I have. I am grateful for the chance to “ride the wave,” and hopefully, my experience can help form therapy decisions for other people suffering from pancreatic cancer. I have benefited from advances made in cancer therapy, and there is a critical need for better diagnoses and treatments given the low 13% five-year survival rate. I think about that statistic a lot as I am in my fifth year of survivorship.

As with so many who are struck by pancreatic cancer, I had no known risk factors like diabetes or heart disease, and genetic testing showed it was not hereditary. Pancreatic cancer patients are often young and in the prime of their lives. More than 65,000 people will be newly diagnosed this year in the US, impacting thousands of families.

I am again participating in the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PanCAN) Purple Stride Silicon Valley on April 26, 2025, to help bring funding and awareness to combat this disease and to honor Dr. Patrick Feehan, a wonderful friend, who died from pancreatic cancer in 2024. Elaine and I want to support PanCAN’s work to accelerate progress and improve outcomes for pancreatic cancer patients, and we’d like you to join us. Our goal is to raise $135,000 for this event. Many thanks for donating to this terrific organization over the last three years. And thank you for all the kind words, prayers, and encouragement so many of you have given me on this journey.