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Tuesday, July 29, 2025

Fighting the beast of all beasts

Na­tal­ie Sab­ga con­tin­ues to fight against pan­cre­at­ic can­cer

by

The WE Mag team
2125 days ago
20191009

Pan­cre­at­ic can­cer has the high­est mor­tal­i­ty rate of all can­cers be­cause it shows no signs or symp­toms un­til it reach­es stage four. Na­tal­ie Sab­ga, whose hus­band, John, passed away from the dis­ease on Jan­u­ary 26, 2017, start­ed the John E Sab­ga Foun­da­tion (JESF) for Pan­cre­at­ic Can­cer. When asked why she con­tin­ues to fight for the cause, Mrs. Sab­ga had a lot to share with the WE mag team. De­ter­mined to find a cure for this chron­ic dis­ease, Na­tal­ie opens up about her hus­band’s bat­tle and why she is com­mit­ted to the cause. This is what she had to share with us:

Peo­ple of­ten ask me “where do you get the strength and en­er­gy?” The truth is I am tired most days from just the day-to-day op­er­a­tions of run­ning my busi­ness, but the slight­est men­tion of Pan­cre­at­ic can­cer some­how man­ages to pique my in­ter­est and rein­vig­o­rate my spir­it.

Can you imag­ine the fear that comes with a can­cer di­ag­no­sis , far more, that of the dead­liest can­cer known to man? “Get your af­fairs in or­der” were the words echoed by John’s doc­tor. With ut­most trep­i­da­tion we em­barked on a re­lent­less chase in search of a cure. Know­ing the lim­it­ed treat­ment op­tions avail­able for pan­cre­at­ic can­cer we fig­ured our best bet would be to seek the care of a pan­cre­at­ic on­col­o­gist in the USA. We hur­ried­ly left for Mi­a­mi’s UM Sylvester Cen­ter where the stage 4 di­ag­no­sis was con­firmed and treat­ment was start­ed. Af­ter two months on the best first-line ther­a­py avail­able, we were stunned to hear that the tu­mours grew and the can­cer num­bers were up. I re­call my hus­band’s shock at the news, as his pain had sub­sided and he was feel­ing so pos­i­tive on the reg­i­men. “Are you sure these re­sults are cor­rect doc­tor?” I re­mem­ber him ask­ing. As scared as we all were at that point, John agreed to try an­oth­er chemo (treat­ment) start­ing the next day. All dur­ing this time whilst away from Trinidad, we were bom­bard­ed with phone calls and ar­ti­cles on the best doc­tors, hos­pi­tals and bush med­i­cine for pan­cre­at­ic can­cer. It was so scary be­cause fear of mak­ing the wrong de­ci­sions was con­stant­ly on our minds. We there­fore sought a sec­ond opin­ion at MD An­der­son in Hous­ton to en­sure we were do­ing every­thing right and to seek en­rol­ment for a clin­i­cal tri­al. His tests at that time were show­ing pos­i­tive re­sults with the new chemo. We were told to go back to Mi­a­mi and con­tin­ue with the treat­ment as there were no clin­i­cal tri­als avail­able for him and since the treat­ment was work­ing in his favour, they (the doc­tors) would not change any­thing. We be­gan to feel hope­ful but as we soon learned with the hor­ri­ble dis­ease, af­ter a short three months the mark­ers start­ed creep­ing up and John’s pain was back.

Scared and des­per­ate, we flew back to Hous­ton where we were told that they had noth­ing else to of­fer. Of course, we could not ac­cept that. We were now in Texas, so we flew to Bay­lor Can­cer Cen­ter in Dal­las to see a doc­tor of whom we read about. He had a clin­i­cal tri­al show­ing great re­sults in pa­tients with pan­cre­at­ic can­cer. To our dis­may, he had no spots avail­able till the fol­low­ing month. Time was run­ning out on us as we both knew the ag­gres­sive na­ture of the dis­ease and three weeks had gone by with­out any chemo. In a last ditch ef­fort, we flew straight away from Dal­las to Ari­zona to see a world renowned pan­cre­at­ic doc­tor and re­searcher. We had no ap­point­ment but we were on a des­per­ate mis­sion and fig­ured once we got there John would be seen. Our ex­pec­ta­tions were high as this was one of the most revered doc­tors in pan­cre­at­ic can­cer and we were far away from home and cling­ing to hope. Luck­i­ly, we man­aged to see Doc­tor Daniel Von Hoff at Hon­orHealth hos­pi­tal and we got John on a clin­i­cal tri­al with­in two days. By this time, chemo reg­i­men af­ter chemo reg­i­men was start­ing to take a toll on John’s body and com­pli­ca­tion af­ter com­pli­ca­tion was the or­der of the day. The new pro­to­col was not work­ing and he switched to his fourth chemo. Sad­ly, that did not work ei­ther and my hus­band de­cid­ed he had enough. He want­ed to come back to his beloved Trinidad and spend his last few days amongst his fam­i­ly and friends.

So why did I start the John E. Sab­ga Foun­da­tion (JESF) for Pan­cre­at­ic Can­cer? The an­swer is sim­ple. How could I not con­tin­ue this fight in my hus­band’s ho­n­our. Af­ter all, we had the means to seek the best treat­ment avail­able in the world and yet still, it was to no avail. The emo­tion­al toll that can­cer im­parts on its vic­tims and fam­i­lies are dev­as­tat­ing. Pan­cre­at­ic can­cer is “the beast of all beasts.” I am com­mit­ted to find­ing a cure for this can­cer and have pledged to raise $1,000,000US for re­search so that our fu­ture gen­er­a­tions will have hope. For this ef­fort, the FDA has ap­proved the “JES 1” Clin­i­cal Tri­al for Pan­cre­at­ic can­cer which will give our peo­ple the op­por­tu­ni­ty to get on a new treat­ment in T&T. This is the first clin­i­cal tri­al of its kind for the Caribbean re­gion. The world is on a mis­sion to find an­swers and bet­ter treat­ment op­tions and the JESF has joined forces in this glob­al and ur­gent mat­ter. I have seen too many peo­ple suc­cumb to this dis­ease with­out a fight­ing chance and I’m de­ter­mined to change the dead­ly sta­tis­tics as­so­ci­at­ed with pan­cre­at­ic can­cer.

Pan­cre­at­ic can­cer is on the rise glob­al­ly due to lifestyle changes. I urge every­one to join the fight now. To­geth­er we can make a dif­fer­ence and bring HOPE to our fu­ture gen­er­a­tions. To learn the signs and symp­toms of pan­cre­at­ic can­cer vis­it www.johns­ab­ga.com or fol­low us on the John E. Sab­ga foun­da­tion for Pan­cre­at­ic Can­cer Face­book page.


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