24 SEENA MAGOWITZ FOUNDATION DE BRA G E LBART | CONTRI BUTI NG WRITER DR. JILL PECHACEK Defined By Relentless Optimism Legacy Heroes

SEENA MAGOWITZ FOUNDATION 25 Legacy Heroes She was a family medicine physician with enormous compassion for her patients — in part because she was a multiple cancer warrior. Pechacek survived a bout with ovarian cancer when she was just 25. About 21 years later she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in September 2014. LIFE INTERRUPTED, BUT NOT SLOWED Her determination to make life better was emblematic of Pechacek’s ebulliently positive outlook, despite facing enough challenges for multiple lifetimes. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer just before her last semester of medical school. “That was my first time being a patient with a serious condition,” she said during an interview in 2017. She said she didn’t any doubt she was going to defeat ovarian cancer. She did just that and went on to have three children: sons Hawk and Brooks and daughter Hope, who are now teenagers. Eight years after the birth of her youngest child, Hope, Pechacek never thought she’d soon be experiencing another bout of cancer. But in September of 2014, pain in her stomach wouldn’t let up. She thought it was either an ulcer or pancreatitis, but received the devastating news that she had stage 4 pancreatic cancer that had metastasized to her liver. This time it was tougher for her to stay positive. “My survival isn’t about just me, it’s about my kids,” she said. NEVER GIVING IN With boundless determination, she traveled to six different cancer-care institutions around the country in search of optimal treatments, though she was already receiving regular infusions of Folfirinox, a cocktail of chemotherapy drugs. “Those were really hard, dark days,” she said. “All consults estimated I had only about six months to live.” After researching clinical research trials, Dr. Jill found Dr. Daniel Von Hoff, a pioneer in the development of targeted therapies for treatment of cancer at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) in Phoenix and the HonorHealth Research Institute in Scottsdale. “When I first met him, one of the leading cancer researchers in the world, I noticed that he has the kindest face and treats you as if you were his only patient in the world,” she said. DR. JILL PECHACEK OF COLORADO PASSED AWAY IN JANUARY 2018 AT THE AGE OF 49 AFTER A 40-MONTH BATTLE WITH PANCREATIC CANCER.