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Lost My Amazing Wife After a 22 Month Fight
My amazing wife passed away during Easter week (4/2/26) after a Stage IV diagnosis in June of 2024 and 22 months of treatment: Folfirinox > Gemabraxane > KRAS G12V Phase 1 Clinical Trial (trial stopped) > Folfiri > KRAS Phase 1 Clinical Trial (Vivideon) > Palliative Radiation.
She endured a lot of pain and discomfort to spend more time with her family, with only a very rare complaint (mainly about Oxaliplatin neuropathy and inability to eat normal foods after a duodenal blockage and bleeding caused by her pancreatic tumor). Unfortunately, we could not get her into the RMC-6236 Phase 3 study (and approval did not come in time), but she was happy to have contributed to first in human research for two KRAS targeted therapies, which I think will become a new standard first line treatment in combination with traditional chemotherapy in the coming months.
For all of you that have been diagnosed and/or are being treated, keep fighting the good fight! This is a tough disease to crack, but positive things are around the corner.
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I am so sorry to hear of your wife’s journey ending.
Thank you for being her support being positive and for her leading the way for the rest of us on this journey 💜
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4 ReactionsThank you for sharing! Your wife sounds like a truly wonderful person! May her spirit live on in all those who received so much from her!
The Kras trials have such impact on treatments for all of us, and those in the future. As you said, positive things are around the corner.
I may or may not be on the same journey, time will tell. But I’m grateful to have learned so much from the sharing of experiences in this group.
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5 Reactions@triciaot I wish the very best to you on your own journey!
I have a human clinical trial research background in my past life, so I have read a lot about the advances regarding drugging the KRAS linked pathways in PDAC. The latest information that I thought was really exciting (from animal modeling) recently is that turning off the mutated "always on" KRAS pathway may lead to pancreatic tumors becoming more sensitive to chemotherapy. The work has only just begun to use KRAS inhibitors in conjunction with chemo, but I it could be an important development!
Pancreatic cancer is going to be similar to treating HIV/AIDS or breast cancer, where hitting the disease from multiple angles at the same time will be the key to defeating it. While the KRAS inhibitors may not be a cure on their own (as PDAC learns to adapt and evade treatment so well), they are another important piece of the puzzle. I hope all patients get access to RMC-6236 very soon!
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5 Reactions@corieg Thank you so much! Ironically, we met while working at a company called Amgen, that made the first white blood cell stimulating drug to support cancer patients on chemo. Being able to participate in research that can help others will always be a bright spot in a difficult journey.
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1 ReactionSo sorry to hear of this and on Easter weekend.
I appreciate that you took time to post and so appreciate all she did to have valuable time with her family and also push forward important clinical trials.
I wish more could realize how hard we are fighting just to have more time with family. We know this is terminal so moments are golden.
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1 Reaction@vannkraken Research on KRAS is also interesting to me, besides my own small pancreatic cysts, because my brother has stage 4 lung cancer. They’re finding 20-30% of NSCLC has KRAS mutation.
He is currently on Keytruda which has caused the cancer to back out of the adrenals and stop growth of brain metastasis.
Any push forward on tackling cancer is good for everyone.