Meet Steve Panik

Steve is a family man, husband to Sharon, faithful, a good friend and neighbor, and a passionate fisherman. After a very successful fishing trip on Lake Erie in July 2020, Steve returned home and became a little jaundiced. His doctor thought he had a clogged bile duct that needed a stent. After surgery on July 24 2020, the shocking diagnosis came – the surgeon found pancreatic cancer. There was a whirlwind of appointments that followed.

Step one on this cancer journey was two rounds of chemotherapy starting August 18, 2020. Step two came on December 3, 2020 with the 13.5 hour Whipple surgery that resulted in a 70th birthday present for Steve about a week later: surgery was a complete success, all margins were clear and he was considered CANCER FREE. More “insurance” chemo followed the surgery. Now Steve just needed to make a New Year’s resolution to fatten up!

2021 saw Steve, and his wife, Sharon, become home bodies, kind of like the rest of the world. But 2022-2023 had them back on the go. They enjoyed trips to Boston with family, a cruise and trip to Disneyworld, a Caribbean Cruise, several trips to Breckenridge and Ohio and of course fishing whenever the opportunity arose!

Then on October 23, 2023 a biopsy of a spot on Steve’s lung confirmed that his pancreatic cancer had returned. Currently, Steve is going through another round of chemotherapy with fatigue being the most challenging side effect.