They Say, Nobody Cares...Then I'll Just Work Harder
Why I won't give up this fight...
I am not exactly sure when that proverbial switch flipped, but it did, and I refuse to shut it off. Pancreatic cancer is devastating, even before it tries to kill you. It looks you in the eyes and tells you that it’s going to kill you. Then, it turns around and it tells all your family and friends that it’s going to kill you…and then this evil disease dares you to defy the odds, despite the torture it will throw at you…and your family. No mercy…maybe I need to slow it down a little.
Work harder
Taking some time to sit and chill with a good friend, he asked why I was going ‘all in’ on pancreatic cancer. His suggestion: would it be better to just relax and enjoy life as it comes, especially since I never know what tomorrow will bring? I’m not sure how ‘not knowing what tomorrow brings’ makes me different from anyone else. Don’t we all have a little bit of that risk in our lives?
You see, I spend half my time collaborating with CANCER FUND, a venture capital firm developing investment opportunities specifically focused on novel cancer therapies, diagnostics and other solutions to improve patient outcomes, drive innovation and maybe find ‘the cure’, coupled with the opportunity for investors to realize a return. I made a decision that I will deliver results and make an effort to improve outcomes for pancreatic patients.
Now, I understand that this is beyond ambitious. I’m not a highly educated PhD or skilled surgeon / trained doctor, I’m not a biotech researcher or scientist and I am definitely not a billionaire philanthropist. However, this problem is no easy feat for them either as is obvious by the fact that pancreatic cancer stats are getting worse. A recent quote from Lex Friedman,
“Experts are exceptionally important for society, and yes, it can be frustrating to spend a lifetime studying a subject and then find yourself talking to someone with no degrees, written books, time in the field, etc. But tough shit, the battle is in the space of ideas, not diplomas.”
- Lex Friedman
I spend the other half of my time as the Phoenix Affiliate Chairman for the Pancreactic Cancer Action Network, coordinating and developing our Phoenix community focused on pancreatic cancer. PanCAN drives innovation, advocates for funding across various government levels and most importantly, they support patients, survivors and families in many ways through the horrible ordeal of pancreatic cancer. They do it with donations and its signature event, PurpleStride that takes place the last Saturday in April every year. I spend the remaining half with family and friends (my Yogi Berra-ism for the day).
Some history behind all of this bluster…
January of 2021: I decided this journey with cancer, as far as I was concerned, was done. I had regained most of my strength and felt I was becoming productive again. I didn’t want to be a cancer patient, I needed to move on. I wanted to suppress the existence of the journey: those experiences were documented, I was done. I wanted a normal life…whatever that meant. I wanted to walk away from the fear that had gripped me for the past few years. I celebrated the milestones, shared them through my essays, and then walked away.
Life has brought me so much and I became keen to observe my family grow in many ways. I have shared good times with great humans, celebrated more holidays, vacationed and experienced the loss of friends, loved ones and my two dogs. I became a father-in-law twice, a grandfather, I was blessed with the opportunity to thank my doctor for helping me to survive. I felt I had pushed my disease to the bottom of the list and out of my mind as life moved on. The challenge: I am still in surveillance mode, so every few months, I am reminded that my risk is real as they regularly search to see if that menace dares to return. I compartmentalize those thoughts across the few days when I am tested: blood work, CT scans and vitals tracking. Then, we go through my results and that’s it…I move on until the next round. It never leaves…f* cancer.
Under the influence of hope…there are not enough hours in the day
November 2023: Just when I thought I was getting out, they pulled me back in…I felt compelled to use my voice to ensure others know there is hope. I want to change the narrative and fight this disease head on. I want to help pancreatic cancer patients and their families change their deadly assumptions. I want to give what I can so that they may feel hopeful in the face of this disease, instead of the hopelessness that usually comes with it…pancreatic cancer does not have to be a death sentence. There is hope! There are treatments, there is real investment to solve the issue and all the challenges that come with it. No more silence…there are not enough hours in the day. No excuses…f* cancer.
I have had the opportunity to share my journey with others who were and are going through this disease, introduced to me by people who thought my message could help…only one remains and while there is great hope, too many do not survive. I know there are others who need help, who need hope, who need to believe they are not doomed. I want to manifest the possibility of those afflicted with this disease, to tell their story. I want to pay it forward however I can. It starts now.
Let’s go
January 2025: The founder of CANCER FUND, reached out. He wanted to create a fund specifically focused on pancreatic cancer. He wanted me to join his mission…let’s go!
CANCER FUND has been an experience that in a few short months has gone beyond my wildest imagination.. I have been exposed to an ecosystem of scientists, doctors, researchers, advocates and business leaders who work tirelessly to develop new solutions, new twists to old solutions and are tackling cancer from every angle. Young entrepreneurs using their God given gifts and relentless energy to drive innovation. Investors, motivated by financial return or in many cases, just wanting to make an impact and stop the myriad types of pain caused by these cancers. Long hours of study, research, executing detailed lab tests and collaborating across this system to find the answer. Tirelessly turning their visions into reality, all while understanding the difficulty and risks of their endeavors, all while hoping they can make a difference.
I have had the opportunity to see tangible evidence that started with ideas or problems like making therapies more absorbable, creating less invasive liquid biopsies, changing cells to be more detectable or protected during therapies, isolating cancer cells to prevent harm to healthy cells, and tools developed to make detection easier and surveillance less painful and invasive…their common theme, cancer had been experienced too closely in too many ways. Regardless of much underlying pain, it fueled their spirit: it was like entering a whole new world of HOPE.
Great things come from hard work and perseverance. No excuses.”
– Kobe Bryant
I expected my efforts here would require a significant amount of effort that is beyond my current imagination. The motivating thing is, while it seems daunting, the limits of my imagination are stretched further everyday as I experience and learn more about the world of cancer treatment development. I bring to the table my ability to collaborate across many lines of expertise and synthesize the info into manageable, digestible chunks to generate interest and broader thinking and encourage collaboration. I also believe I have an operations and systems mindset that helps coordinate efforts across those lines. My hope is now based on real and tangible opportunities and possibilities about what can be achieved. In this world, if real capital and the right human resources are effectively focused on changing the outcomes, anything should be possible. As Lex Friedman phrased it, the battle is in the space of ideas, not diplomas.
“I knew that if I failed I wouldn’t regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not trying.”
- Jeff Bezos,
Science and money lands reusable rockets, builds capabilities that are changing everything we do: from the mundane to the ultra-intelligent tech that surrounds us. Self-driving cars, highly effective AI and so on…and as I experience the world of med / bio tech, with a different perspective, I am understanding that truly mind blowing things are happening. What we do will eventually and hopefully solve the underlying root cause of the problem with regards to survival rates. However, there are a plethora of symptoms that will exist until we do, too many people are still dying…no more f’n cancer.
As I search for a way to bring capital to these opportunities and ensure my energy is focused on driving, supporting, manifesting collaboration into capital that will make a difference, I also experienced personally and vicariously through others, the real life impacts of cancer.
My respect and admiration for those involved in the medical and bio tech communities is beyond description. Their efforts bring hope to everyone, everywhere. They need resources beyond money. They need skilled people, facilities, a research funnel, testing capabilities…and they seek all of this for the opportunity to save a life. Their missions are important beyond measure, their success should be celebrated and their failures, fodder for more work and effort. But the problem needs more…
Blind ambition…but on a mission
June 30th 2020: I walked into the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix under the dark blue morning sky and underwent a surgery to remove a tumor on the head of my pancreas. Many hours passed under the deft hands of a highly skilled surgeon who would rearrange my insides forever. For many months prior to this, highly skilled doctors and nurses fed me chemo cocktails and carefully exposed me to radiation, to make that surgery possible. As I woke up from my chemical dreams, I smiled, ecstatic about the nurse in front of me as he reviewed the telemetry on the screens and ensured the network of tubes in and out of my body were properly transporting organic matter as required. It was July 1st. I arrived home 9 days after my surgery. I awoke from surgery and I was ecstatic; I was almost laughing as I awoke from the terrible dream of the last 9 months. 9 days later I went home, and the tubes were all out, the staples holding my abdomen together were healing and my body was aligning with its recent reconfiguration.
Physically exhausted, I struggled to gain or maintain weight and my body hurt. Time passed, I began to feel deflated: everything I experienced during the treatments and surgery was successful - joy at every milestone, but now I felt like shit, every day. I was hopefully expecting to feel normal, once all of that was done, taking for granted that I was lucky to be alive. I hated cancer and being a cancer patient. I needed life to return to normal and move on… and then, slowly, things changed. I was able to keep my weight stable. The foggy brain had started to clear, my staples were removed and life seemed to be moving on. I am a survivor…over the past 2 years, I made it my mission to improve pancreatic cancer outcomes using any and all skills that I have or need to acquire…still, beyond ambitious.
August 2020: Over a month since my surgery. I was walking around outside of my house, enjoying the warmth of the sun after surgery. I noticed my neighbor across the street, whom I hadn’t spoken to in months, had lost a significant amount of weight, and was moving slowly across his yard. I walked over and asked how he was doing; both our shoulders sank sullenly as he explained he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer while I was going through treatment. He just found out he was allergic to chemo. He was waiting for next steps from his medical team…a few months later he passed away, only a couple of years after he retired..
October 2020: An old colleague from Canada, now living in the US, called, and said he heard about what I had been through. He had recently been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer - wtf was my first response. He was a systems architect, highly intelligent, spoke multiple languages and was ready to retire, but continued working, committed to his job, until his diagnosis forced his hand. Aside from being a corporate stalwart, he was an alchemist, practicing very old family traditions learned as a child in Argentina. In his spare time he built clocks from scratch and loved taking beautiful photos of the desert with antique cameras. We spent time discussing our journey, comparing notes and sharing interests and what we were reading at the time. He went through surgery, and 4 months later, he passed from complications.
October 2021-January 2024: I kept on working on minor home renovations I used to keep me moving and testing my physical and mental capabilities. Head down, painting, tiling, plumbing and cleaning up as that list of small projects somehow started to include 2 bathroom remodels, replastering all of my walls, and so many other updates, thanks to my wife…no more cancer. Keeping my hands and mind busy was the key…no more f’ing cancer.
January 2024: Almost a year before I began volunteering for PanCAN. Another friend had reached out and said a colleague of his was going through pancreatic cancer. He was my age, had a great family and was successful in the tech industry. He asked if he could connect us to help him through the ordeal. I obliged, and soon, we began to chat regularly over the phone or via text about what treatments doctors had suggested, what he was going through and the progress of his journey, comparing and contrasting together, to help him get comfortable. October 2024:, that successful family man and business leader passed away.
March 2025: I spoke to a woman whose mother has stage 4 pancreatic cancer that has metastasized. She knew her mother’s prognosis was horrible, but she tried to remain hopeful. She wanted a second opinion, not knowing if it would matter. We discussed different options and the importance of advocating for her and constantly stressing to get on with next steps.
No doctors had discussed the potential of clinical trials. This woman was worried about diet, and mental health: the stress on her mother, her father and herself. Her mother struggles with dying and leaving her husband. Her father worried about being a widow, and this woman was struggling with losing her mother.
I used the information I have learned from PanCAN, encouraged her and connected her with PanCAN to seek out clinical trials for therapies that may extend her life or at least make her more comfortable beyond what short periods she had left. PanCAN educates people all over the US with messages of the importance of self advocacy and alternative routes for care. A huge promoter of clinical trials, PanCAN connects people to studies intelligently. They have a support center where patients and families can call to discuss their experiences, their fears. PanCAN offers dietary recommendations and has extensive menus to support digestive health through diagnosis, treatment and postoperative eating. They explain the benefits of and dispel myths.
PanCAN advocates with congress to ensure research funding is available. This is foundational to the development ecosystem. Every major medical advancement over the last 50 years is in some way connected to federal research.
PanCAN has a great database of survivor stories, that vary in so many ways, where you can read and gain hope that it is possible. These stories kept me going when everything and everyone else was already mourning me.
Waves of hope
March 2025: I spoke to a young woman who was a guest speaker at last year’s PurpleStride event asking her if she would do a TV interview to promote this year’s PurpleStride with AZFamily, a local news station here in Phoenix. She would do this virtually because she was working for a space technology and engineering firm - a rocket scientist. You see, she survived pancreatic cancer, recovered and graduated. She struggled with a number of health issues at a young age, and after a lot of misdiagnosis, and a significant amount of self-advocacy, her doctors had discovered she had pancreatic cancer. Her determination to not accept feeling shitty every day motivated her to push her medical team for more and they managed to catch the damn disease in time. She’s thriving.
April 2025: this week, a participant in our upcoming fundraising walk, returned my call after I had left him a voicemail, thanking him for coordinating a big team and raising a lot of money for the cause. He called to thank me for organizing this event. He lost his brother in law 5 years ago and his family and all his old friends gather at the event to celebrate his life. They raise money, take a little walk, enjoy the atmosphere and reminisce, laugh and cry about a man who died of PC.
Why charity? …it’s a conduit of empathy, support and understanding
People who have had to deal with this rotten disease are connected by the fact that all of those around them have some level of understanding about what they went through…they hope to make the biggest impact possible with the dollars they collected. They aim to cure the disease, hopeful it helps. Do charities and foundations take advantage of this? Maybe, but that’s a level of cynicism that is pervasive along too many traditional lines and requires a separate discussion.
I support PanCAN because it offers real services to an underserved cancer community that is probably neglected because their incident numbers don’t scale well enough for drug companies (cynical path) and the death rate and late detection makes research and understanding more difficult, so they become a sub-category in their trek to use the money they have against more popular cancers (what a phrase).
Out of everything PanCAN does, that ability to be a conduit of empathy, support and understanding for the emotions of not only the patients, but the families and friends that surround them…that scales...a lot.
I hope this message resonates with you. Below are some important links from this essay.
Pancreatic Cancer Action Network
My fundraising team for PurpleStride
CANCER FUND - a venture capital company focused on making a real IMPACT