Patrick Theriault Pancreatic Cancer Survivor

"Well, thank you for doing such a good pronunciation of my name. It's a French name, and I'm French Canadian. I thought I would do my speech in French tonight, but I'm going to spare you. Anyway, what a great place! What an amazing event this is! Thank you very much for having me here tonight.
I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2017 while I was living in the UK. Like many of us here, the diagnosis just came as a blow to the stomach. You see, I'm a medical doctor, and I learned quite early in my career, on the medical school bench, that this is the diagnosis you don't want to give to your patient. Luckily, in no time, I had surgery in England. The :Whipple Surgery” was done, and it was followed by six months of adjuvant chemotherapy. I was told it was stage one, and the surgical margins were clear, so I was hopeful.
Two years later, the cancer came back. I had a recurrence in the surgical bed, at the same place, and “it's now considered inoperable”. This was my Checkmate moment. The doctor I saw in Canada at that time told me I had 12 to 18 months to live and that I should basically prepare my papers. I underwent chemotherapy. He recommended palliative care at this stage. It didn't go well. I lost 60 pounds, the tumor continued to grow, and both my morale and physique were spiraling down. All this, despite having the best possible care available in Canada. So, I organized all my papers and my will. I also had conversations with my three children because I had pretty much lost hope at that stage.
However, there is one person present here tonight that remained hopeful. So, Sean, I will be forever thankful.
Sean directed me to the “John Sabga Foundation in Trinidad and Tobago:, where John Sabga is from. Sean was a school friend of Natalie Sabga, who is the founder of this Foundation established it in memory of her husband. Natalie responded to our call within a matter of hours and connected me with “Dr. Erkut Borazanci and his team at Honor Health in Scottsdale, Arizona”. This was in 2020, during the COVID pandemic. It was impossible for me to travel due to the restrictions and my poor health. My first contact with the Arizona team was through Skype.
I sent them all my medical reports. After they reviewed my case, they disagreed with the Canadian team. Dr. B, as his patients refer to him recommended that I stop chemotherapy and start radiotherapy, as my recurrence was very localized. He was willing to try a new approach. The Canadian team never offered that option because radiotherapy doesn't figure in the treatment offered by the government healthcare plan.
I was also discouraged from taking radiotherapy because I was told pancreatic cancer is not radiosensitive, and even worse, my cancer could spread if I stopped chemotherapy. But look at me now, three years later. I finished my radiotherapy and continue with oral maintenance therapy. “Dr. B says I look good. The tumor has regressed, and it remains stable. I'm feeling great, and now, I am hopeful. Thank you.
My story reminds me of a very important concept that we're all too familiar with…... the concept of a predictable path. We dictate our actions based on this concept. We plan our lives based on predictability. We listen daily to weather predictions. Businesses and politics rely heavily on predictability. We're sitting right now in this amazing stadium, a baseball stadium, where so many games are played on the predictable path. Just the way the pitcher plans to throw his ball, how the hitter and the catcher position themselves, how statistics on the teams are made, or how games are won and lost.
This is also how medicine works. A disease is studied to establish a predictable path of its course. We establish prognosis and treatment based on the predictability of the disease. When I received my diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, I knew the predictable path of the disease. I had studied that in school. As a patient, I was reminded again of the poor prognosis, and just like my team of doctors, I resigned myself to this predictable outcome.
The work being done by Natalie Sabga and the Sabga Foundation, by Dr. B, Lana Caldwell, the team at Honor Health. Dr. Danile Van Hoff, Dr. Weeks, Dr. Douglas B. Evans, Roger Magowitz, and the Seena Magowitz Foundation is important. Together, you're changing the predictable path of pancreatic cancer. Tonight, I want to thank you all personally for changing that paradigm. The paradigm that makes this disease a Checkmate disease. You're making this disease a possibility where research is active and promising, where hope remains.
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