Honoring Jacque’s Legacy

Bill Garnet

Bill Garnet and his beloved wife, Jacque Lueth, would have marked their 35^th wedding anniversary last November—ironically, during Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month. Instead of celebrating this milestone together, Bill is honoring Jacque’s memory and the beautiful life they had shared, cut short by pancreatic cancer.

Bill and Jacque’s love story began in 1980, when they met on the set of ABC’s Battle of the Network Stars, where he was a television producer and she was a production assistant. They married in 1989, and Jacque enjoyed a long, successful career in both television and event production, even winning coveted awards for events she produced for groups as large as 60,000 attendees. In addition to her career, Jacque loved her dogs, Tori and Maxi.

In September 2023, Jacque’s life took a devastating turn when she believed she was experiencing a recurrent kidney stone attack. In October, the pain became so intense that she went to the emergency room, where doctors performed an ultrasound and other tests and administered strong pain medication, insisting she had a kidney stone that would pass. However, she had another attack a couple of weeks later and her urologist scheduled a lithotripsy procedure to surgically remove the stone. During the testing for Jacque’s surgical clearance, doctors at her local California hospital discovered the alarming cause of her pain wasn’t a kidney stone at all—it was pancreatic cancer.

Jacque and Bill felt completely blindsided and overwhelmed by her diagnosis; she was only 69, was otherwise in excellent health, and had no family history of pancreatic cancer. Jacque insisted they would fight this life-threatening disease together and remained positive and determined. Her oncologist suggested chemotherapy and a Whipple procedure. Upon the recommendation of close friends, Bill and Jacque sought a second opinion at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, one of the most world-renowned cancer research and treatment facilities. Doctors there agreed with her oncologist in California that chemotherapy, followed by a Whipple surgery and potentially additional chemotherapy, would offer the best chance for survival.  

With a treatment plan in place, Jacque received her first round of FOLFIRINOX in December 2023 but became so ill that she developed sepsis and was admitted to the hospital. The sepsis led to encephalopathy, impairing her cognitive abilities and causing excruciating physical pain. The medication to treat the encephalopathy caused side effects so debilitating that Jacque was unable to safely return home and instead needed rehabilitation in a skilled nursing facility. Her Medicare benefits wouldn’t cover both chemotherapy treatment and a stay in a skilled nursing facility concurrently, so she was eager to regain her strength, leave the facility, and resume her treatment. Luckily, she significantly improved there, both physically and cognitively, and was discharged nearly two months later.

However, Bill’s and Jacque’s relief over her homecoming was short-lived. After just eight days and a second chemotherapy treatment, she became so sick with a bacterial infection in her colon that she was readmitted to the hospital and then reentered the skilled nursing facility to recover. She returned home in late April 2024 for further chemotherapy treatment; by this point, though, the cancer had spread from the head to the tail of her pancreas. She became so weak from the chemotherapy that she slipped out of her wheelchair when she tried to move onto the couch. Bill had to pick her up and, in the process, her sternum cracked and she was hospitalized for nearly a week. A month after this latest hospitalization, Jacque began hospice care at home, where she passed away on September 11, 2024, surrounded by Bill, her dear friend Paul, and Paul’s husband Vernon.

“I spent a year completely engrossed in taking care of Jacque, and I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. She was convinced she’d beat this disease; in fact, she was still fighting a week and a half before she passed away,” Bill notes, remembering the overwhelming sadness he felt telling Jacque’s mother, in her mid-90s, that her daughter was so seriously ill. “I recommend spending as much time with, and giving as much of yourself to, your loved one who is going through a pancreatic cancer diagnosis. You don’t know what you don’t have until you don’t have it anymore.”

Following Jacque’s passing, Bill, heartbroken, moved to his hometown of New York City to be near his family and to escape the constant reminders of his and Jacque’s life together in California. Bill discovered the Lustgarten Foundation through extensive online research and was immediately impressed with the Foundation’s mission and dedication to detecting the disease early and discovering new, life-saving treatments. Bill is looking forward to attending his first Lustgarten Walk for Pancreatic Cancer Research in New York City this spring, where he hopes to connect with other patients and families to both celebrate and remember their loved ones.

In addition to getting involved at the Walk, Bill is committed to working with the Lustgarten Foundation to raise disease awareness and support research through a documentary he is creating. He is currently securing the necessary funding and a release date for the project. The documentary will focus on pancreatic cancer as a tribute to Jacque and to her resilience in the face of this horrible disease.

“I want Jacque’s legacy to be that she inspired this urgently needed documentary and helped get it produced,” Bill emphasized. “I’m a great believer in mankind’s incredible capabilities, including the ability to hopefully stop people from passing away from cancer. We’re smart enough to beat it—if we can think it then we can do it—but we need the funding, research, and awareness, as these are what will get us there. For Jacque, and for the thousands of other patients who have passed away and whose loved ones are grieving, I will always continue this fight.”