Jay Pearce – 1954-2024
Gary here. If you’ve been following the Pancreatic CancerCast episodes, or all the stuff on Facebook, you know that my brother Jay lost his short battle with Pancreatic Cancer at 4:20 am on August 21, 2024. That was just three months after being diagnosed as Stage Four, and who-knows-how-long after it really began developing. He tried hard to keep doing the podcast, but you can see that he didn’t have the strength.
I was honored to be at his side, along with family and closest friends, when he let go. I can’t tell you how much we all miss him.
THE SHOW MUST GO ON?
That’s what they say in show biz 🎭. And that might happen 🤔. Not just ‘the Gary Show’ – Jay’s kids, Dale and Sara, and some friends from Jay’s radio days have expressed interest in joining me to keep going. In what form, and under what name are good questions. The original show was just an outlet for Jay and me to have fun and exercise our broadcasting chops in retirement. So we will see. Stay tuned.
Below is the original ‘about’ text for the website, updated while Jay was just getting started with his fight. I can’t bring myself to delete it. Not just yet.
Jay and Gary Pearce are brothers, and both have retired from careers in media and broadcasting.
Older brother Gary lists video editing, audio engineering, voice-over talent, radio DJing and YouTube/Podcasting on his resume.
Younger brother Jay spent his entire career in radio, both commercial and public. He’s done DJing, News, Management (news and operations), and his last ten years before retiring as CEO of a public station in Rock Island, IL and six years on the NPR Board of Directors.
In early 2024, they began the Jay and Gary Show as a ‘retirement project’ — something to keep the creativity going and have fun making a show together after not being all that involved in each other’s lives as adults. As a YouTube show and podcast, it has been unfocused, more or less on purpose. They weren’t trying for a big audience, at least not yet.
But then, in the tenth episode, in the middle of an otherwise random show, Jay disclosed that he was having some serious pain, that he couldn’t sleep. He and his doctor thought it was a gastrointestinal issue. By episode eleven, he had learned what was really happening. Tumors had been growing on his pancreas, liver, and some lympth nodes. That’s what was causing the pain. It was Stage Four Pancreatic Cancer.
While Jay and his wife, Melisse, were working with doctors to set up treatment, Gary knew a ‘fun podcast’ wasn’t sustainable. Gary had his own bout with cancer in 2000. While it was Stage 1 lymphoma, highly treatable (and treated successfully), he knew that going through chemotherapy knocked him out for weeks, and he didn’t really recover his stamina for months, perhaps more than a year. And the prognosis for anyone with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer is bad. There’s always hope, and we don’t give up. But it’s going to be a rough ride.
Gary suggested pivoting the podcast to take that ride along with Jay. Jay and his family agreed. Thus began the Jay and Gary Pancreatic CancerCast. Gary traveled from his home in the Charlotte suburbs to visit Jay in the Champaign, IL area, and they recorded Episode 1, the day after Jay’s first chemo infusion session. Dial up that web page to follow the story.
We don’t know what’s going to happen, week to week. We certainly don’t know the outcome at this point. We know it may be difficult to continue, but no more difficult than the process that Jay and his family will be going through. The podcast takes a back seat to the therapy, but we can probably see a lot from that back seat.