“Golden Bachelorette” Joan Vassos Is Fundraising for Pancreatic Cancer in Honor of Late Husband (Exclusive)
On Valentine's Day six years ago, the reality star and her husband John learned that he had pancreatic cancer, which would eventually take his life
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"Golden Bachelorette" Joan Vassos is raising money for pancreatic cancer in honor of her late husband John.Golden Bachelorette Joan Vassos is raising funds for pancreatic cancer research in honor of her late husband John, who died of the disease in 2021
The reality star is leading a team for the Washington, DC, branch of the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network's PanCANPurple Stride walk on April 26
"He would want to do something for other people," she tells PEOPLE of raising money in John's name
Golden Bachelorette Joan Vassos is raising funds to end pancreatic cancer in the name of her late husband John, who died from the disease in 2021 at age 59.
Announcing her partnership with Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PanCAN) on Valentine’s Day is particularly poignant, Joan, 62, tells PEOPLE exclusively.
“Six years ago on Valentine's Day was when the doctors came into our hospital room and told us that John had pancreatic cancer,” she says. “It feels like yesterday and it feels like a lifetime ago. Despite his valiant and courageous and hopeful journey, he lost his battle on January 18th in 2021.”
For the upcoming PanCAN PurpleStride on April 26 — PanCan’s fundraising walk that’s taking place in 60 cities — Vassos is leading a team in Washington, DC, named "It’s Just a Sprain." The moniker is a nod to her late husband’s indelible spirit.
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Joan Vassos with her late husband John“John always had the brightest outlook on everything,” she said, sharing that the phrase “it’s just a sprain” stems from his days coaching their son’s football team. (She and John, who were married 32 years, shared four children: Allison, Nicholas, Erica and Luke.)
“Inevitably, several times during the game, a kid would go down and all the coaches would run out, and they'd move his arm around. My husband would always say, ‘It's just a sprain.’ And the kid would hop back up and, you know, act like everything was fine. They just needed a little bit of attention.”
Joan shared that when John was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, his sister Sarah wanted to make rubber bracelets for family and friends to wear to show their support. “We decided that it would be funny to put on it, ‘It's just a sprain,’ just because that was always his positive outlook on everything — that everything can be overcome. It's just a small glitch in the road. And so that became kind of his mantra throughout his treatment, that it's just a sprain.”
Pancreatic cancer is one of the most devastating cancers, as it generally doesn’t show symptoms until it’s too far advanced. As PanCAN explains, even when it’s discovered only in the pancreas, the five-year survival rate is 44%. For all types of pancreatic cancer, the five-year survival rate is 13%.
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As Joan tells PEOPLE, John was diagnosed when he was stage 4, and he’d only been exhibiting symptoms for a month — it started off as a rash. As PanCAN explains, symptoms can also include bloating, abdominal pain or weight loss.
“It's a very painful cancer,” Joan tells PEOPLE, sharing that her husband’s cancer was too far progressed for surgery so he underwent chemotherapy and radiation. “He made it about two years, but the two years were horrible,” she shares, saying that the cancer spread to his liver and then, “it spread significantly.”
“He started out 220 pounds, and when he died, he was under 120 pounds. It's a horrible cancer,” she shared. “He had very, very few days in those two years that were even bearable.”
The effects of the treatment, she tells PEOPLE, were brutal. “I would hold John's hand, and his hand would be freezing. And I'd be like, ‘How can that be? It's 95 degrees outside.’ “ John also struggled to eat; Joan shared she would make milkshakes out of Ensure drinks, to “get as many calories as I can get into anything I could, just so he wouldn't lose any more weight.”
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Joan Vassos on "The Golden Bachelorette"But even in the face of this brutal treatment, he remained positive. As Joan tells PEOPLE, “I want that to be his legacy, that he was such a positive person. We've been thinking about this for years how to honor him, and this is exactly what he wanted. He would want to do something for other people. That's the type of person he was.”
Now that she’s signed up to lead a team for PanCAN PurpleStride, she says, “I feel his presence a lot more. When somebody first passes away, you almost try to push it to the back of your mind just so you can function, just so you can live and get through each day.”
Joan — who signed on to Gerry Turner's season of Golden Bachelor, which debuted in September, 2023, two years after John's death — departed the show to be with her daughter as she struggled with postpartum depression.
She later told PEOPLE that, at first, she "felt like I was cheating" during her own show, The Golden Bachelorette, where she later found love with now-fiancé, Chock Chapple.
“As it gets a little farther away from when you lost them, you start remembering the really good things and you want to have those memories, and I'm at that point," she shares. "Being part of the PanCAN PurpleStride has had me thinking about him a lot.”
“I feel like I'm doing something positive finally, as we just kind of lingered in the sadness of his death for a long time — and now we're doing something positive.”
Read the original article on People
