A West Vancouver family will soon bike up a local mountain for pancreatic cancer research.
Anthony Thomas, his wife Carolyn Bliss and their daughter Emily Thomas will be pedalling 12 kilometres up the steep Cypress Bowl Road as part of the annual Capilano Volkswagen Cypress Challenge, raising funds for pancreatic cancer research at BC Cancer.
“I felt like it was a good idea that we do this,” Thomas said, after hearing about the challenge through Maddi, his eldest daughter who will be cheering them on the sidelines. “Everybody in the family was all for it, so we decided to join on.”
The challenge is a personal one for the family. When Anthony and Carolyn were driving back from the B.C. Interior over the Labour Day weekend, he started to feel intense pain in his lower back.
Carolyn urged him to get it checked out. They stopped at a hospital in Whistler, where doctors took a CT scan and found a kidney stone, but also two masses on Anthony's pancreas and liver. After an MRI scan, doctors discovered Stage 4 pancreatic cancer.
“Things looked really, really bad,” Anthony said.
Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest cancers due to few symptoms appearing in the first stages, making it more challenging to diagnose early.
The Canadian Cancer Society estimated in 2024 that 7,100 Canadians would be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and 6,100 will die from the disease. For pancreatic cancer, the five-year survival rate is 10 per cent.
However, hope turned around for Anthony after a biopsy. Doctors found a neuroendocrine cell, which has a better prognosis.
“It was a big lift for me,” he said. “I really started focusing on trying to get better because up until then, it just seemed like a doomsday scenario.”
Anthony then had surgery in November, removing most of the cancer.
The family feels thankful for the positive trajectory, but also the amount of support they’ve received from the community.
“It was great to have friends and community and good doctors around to support us,” Carolyn said. “Especially in that first month when we thought it was terminal, it was quite overwhelming.”
Maddi and Emily echoed their mom’s thoughts, saying they admire their dad’s resilience.
“It’s really brought us all much closer together in a way,” Maddi said. “I think it makes you just feel much more grateful for life, and the ability to spend time together.”
As the days count down for the challenge, the family is practicing biking up and down the route, so they’ll be ready to go on July 27.
Since the challenge launched in 2008, cyclists have raised more than $5.2 million to support more pancreatic cancer research through the BC Cancer Foundation.
The Thomas family has raised more than $43,000 to go towards pancreatic cancer research. People interested in donating to the family can do so on the Cypress Challenge website.
Abby Luciano is the Indigenous and civic affairs reporter for the North Shore News. This reporting beat is made possible by the Local Journalism Initiative.
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