Back in March, Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek revealed that he had been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. He shared the news in a video posted to the Jeopardy! YouTube channel, and around one week later, he returned as the host for the long-running game show. In a new interview with People, Trebek announced that his cancer is in "near remission."
The 78-year-old game show host recently explained that he had cried in pain on the set of Jeopardy! during his cancer treatment, but now he seems to be heading in the right direction. "It’s kind of mind-boggling," he said of his positive response to chemotherapy so far. "The doctors said they hadn’t seen this kind of positive result in their memory…some of the tumors have already shrunk by more than 50 percent."
Unfortunately he's not quite in the clear yet, with more rounds of chemotherapy on the way. When he learned he was in "near remission," he said he cried. "But they were tears of joy, not tears of depression," he added. "I’ve got a couple million people out there who have expressed their good thoughts, their positive energy directed towards me and their prayers. I told the doctors, this has to be more than just the chemo, and they agreed it could very well be an important part of this."
There has been an outpouring of support for Trebek ever since he shared his diagnosis. "I’ve got a lot of love out there headed in my direction and a lot of prayer, and I will never ever minimize the value of that," he added.
