Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek is opening up on his difficult battle with cancer and how it’s taken a toll on his mental health and has left him depressed.
The beloved 79-year-old game show host announced he was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer in March and has been undergoing intensive chemotherapy since then.
While in remission following his first round of chemo, the cancer returned in September. The five-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer is as low as 5 percent, doctors say, according to the New York Post.
Trebek, who has been hosting Jeopardy! since the 1980s, revealed in a candid interview with ABC News that a surprising effect of his diagnosis is depression.
‘My oncologist told me one of the symptoms, if you will, of pancreatic cancer is that you get these moments of depression, sadness,’ Trebek said in the special set to air Thursday at 8pm on ABC.
Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek is opening up on his difficult battle with cancer and how it’s taken a toll on his mental health and has left him depressed in a candid interview with ABC to air Thursday
His health struggle has been especially hard for his family – his wife of 29 years Jean Currivan Trebek and his two kids Matthew, 29, and Emily, 26
‘It’s always tough for caretakers because she has to deal with her worrying about my well-being and also dealing with … I’m not always the most pleasant person to be around when I’m experiencing severe pain or depression, and she has to tread lightly around me,’ he said on his wife caring for him
His health struggle has been especially hard for his family – his wife of 29 years Jean Currivan Trebek, 56, and his two kids Matthew, 29, and Emily, 26.
‘It’s always tough for caretakers because she has to deal with her worrying about my well-being and also dealing with … I’m not always the most pleasant person to be around when I’m experiencing severe pain or depression, and she has to tread lightly around me,’ he said.
In the sitdown interview Jean says it’s hard to see her husband ‘in pain and I can’t help him.’
Still, the show must go on. Trebek will continue to work on screen and host an upcoming ‘Greatest of All Time’ tournament where the top former Jeopardy! contestants will go head to head in a special that will air on January 7.
Trebek says he’s been touched by the outpouring of support he’s received from millions of show contestants and fans.
Trebek says he’s been touched by the outpour of support by fans and he already has a bit of his speech of his last episode prepared
‘I have learned something in the past year and it’s this: We don’t know when we’re going to die,’ he said.
‘Because of the cancer diagnosis, it’s no longer an open-ended life, it’s a closed-ended life because of the terrible … survival rates of pancreatic cancer [patients]. Because of that, and something else that is operating here, people all over America and abroad have decided they want to let me know now, while I’m alive, about the impact that I’ve been having on their existence.
‘They have come out and they have told me, and my gosh, it makes me feel so good,’ he added.
In November during a round of Final Jeopardy, contestant Dhruv Guar expressed his support for the game host by sidestepping a question entirely and writing as his answer, ‘What is…We [love] you, Alex!’
The host was caught by surprise and revealed, ‘I read it first and then I got choked up because it suddenly registered on me: “Oh, dear. Ok. Yeah.’
As for now, Trebek said his doctors may try new ways to fight his cancer other than chemotherapy.
‘I have learned something in the past year and it’s this: We don’t know when we’re going to die…People all over America and abroad have decided they want to let me know now, while I’m alive, about the impact that I’ve been having on their existence. They have come out and they have told me, and my gosh, it makes me feel so good,’ Trebek said in the interview
‘We may try a new protocol…a different chemo or something in the trial stage that is not chemotherapy,’ Trebek said. ‘I don’t mind experimenting. I’ve got nothing to lose, so let’s go for it.’
Trebek said in the past that he’ll stay on the show ‘as long as my skills have not diminished.’
But he says that he’s already prepared his farewell from the show.
‘It’ll be a significant moment for me,’ Trebek said.
‘But I’ve kind of, in my mind, rehearsed it already, and what I would do on that day is tell the director, “Time the show down to leave me 30 seconds at the end. That’s all I want.” And I will say my goodbyes and I will tell people, “Don’t ask me who’s going to replace me because I have no say whatsoever. But I’m sure that if you give them the same love and attention and respect that you have shown me…then they will be a success and the show will continue being a success. And until we meet again, God bless you and goodbye.’