UPDATED 3/4, 1:00 p.m. ET: Alex Trebek shared a video in which he updated his ongoing treatment for pancreatic cancer.
"There were some good days but a lot of not-so-good days," Trebek said. "I joked with friends that the cancer won't kill me, the chemo treatments will." Though he described some dark days, he ended with a message of hope. "You know my oncologist tried to cheer me up the other day," Trebek added. "He said, Alex, even though the two-year survival rate is only 7%, he was certain that one year from now, the two of us would be sitting in his office celebrating my second anniversary of survival."
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Alex Trebek has donated $100,000 to the Hope of the Valley Rescue Mission, a nonprofit organization that is "focused on preventing, reducing and eliminating poverty, hunger and homelessness", TMZ has learned.
Ken Craft, the organization's founder and CEO, told TMZ that Trebek recently contacted him to request a tour of a new shelter being built in North Hollywood. After his visit, Craft recalls the Jeopardy host, who has given donations over the years, inviting him over to his house to discuss the company's financial plans. What Trebek didn't reveal until Ken came by was an envelope with a check for $100,000.
When he handed over the envelope, Trebek reportedly told Craft, "I hope this helps a little bit." The generous gesture caused Ken to tear up.
Trebek invited Craft and his wife to a taping of Jeopardy, and brought the two onstage during a commercial break to publicly acknowledge what they are doing with their nonprofit organization. "I don't normally do this, but I wanted to bring these two people on stage because they are making a difference in L.A.," the 79-year-old host told the audience.
Trebek announced last September that he would undergo additional chemotherapy to respond to a resurgence in his stage 4 pancreatic cancer. "This summer, because I was making such good progress, we thought I was finished with chemo," he said. "That was a bit premature and certainly overoptimistic. I began immunotherapy, but that didn't go very well at all. My numbers went south dramatically and quickly . . . It appears that I will be having more chemo treatments ahead of me."
"I have learned something in the past year and it's this: We don’t know when we're going to die," Trebek told ABC News. "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. 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."
