FORT COLLINS — It’s Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month, so we checked in with Tim Rickett, the weightlifter and personal trainer we profiled in June. On Friday, he marked nine years since learning he had pancreatic cancer. On Tuesday, he celebrates his 48th birthday. And on Thanksgiving Day, he will receive his third in a series of four radioactive treatments in Rotterdam, Holland.
“It’s the right month to have it, I guess,” says the ever-positive Rickett. The Lu-177 radioactive isotope that is supposed to trick the tumors on his spine into consuming themselves seems to be doing its job. “When they look for radioactivity in the tumors, they look for brightness. Mine have gotten dimmer, so it looks like it’s working.”
Rickett says he has the “exact same kind of cancer” that Steve Jobs had, and hopes that the Apple founder’s struggle will bring more awareness — and funds — to research into the disease that receives just 2 percent of the National Cancer Institute’s federal research funding.
When he noticed that his next treatment was on Thanksgiving Day, his doctor said, “Look at the bright side, this way you don’t have to eat turkey.” But it’s one of Rickett’s favorite meals. “A lot of people have reason for Thanksgiving, I’ve got nine now,” he says, referring to the years he has lived since his diagnosis.
On Sunday, the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network invites the public to gather in 50 locations around the country for a PurpleLight Vigil for pancreatic cancer, the fourth leading cause of cancer death in the country.In Pagosa Springs, the local group will meet at 6 p.m. at Main Street and Hot Springs Boulevard. Contact Inez Lobato-Winter, iwinter@pancanvolunteer.org for more details.
The Denver affiliate will meet on the west steps of the Capitol building at 5 p.m. The group will hand out purple glow sticks and the gathering will end with the reading of names of people who have died of the disease. For more information, e-mail Kara Friedrich at kfriedrich@pancanvolunteer.org.
This year, more than 44,000 Americans will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and nearly 38,000 will die. Three-fourths of patients die within the first year of diagnosis, and the five-year survival rate of 6 percent has not changed in 40 years. The Pancreatic Cancer Action Network’s campaign, “The Vision of Progress: Double the Pancreatic Cancer Survival Rate by 2020,” is working to change those figures.
Actors Patrick Swayze and Michael Landon, Nobel Prize winner Dr. Ralph Steinman, Carnegie Mellon University professor Dr. Randy Pausch and opera tenor Luciano Pavarotti died from the disease.
Learn more at and register for the events at .
Kristen Browning-Blas: 303-954-1440 or kbrowning@denverpost.com
