William H. Gaal Team Bill Gaal

Welcome to Bill Gaal's CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. Thank you for visiting.

Details:
Our Dear Bill--husband, father, grandfather, brother, uncle, coworker and friend, left his body on March 18 after a short but heroic with pancreatic cancer.  Below is information we posted before then, with updates about fundraising for PC research and awareness, and anything else that relates to Bill now. We hope that you will continue to hold Bill, his family and all those who love him in the light.

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January 2019 was a whirlwind, with medical tests and more tests, high temperatures, blood loss (4 pints) from a GI complication, weakness and a major blood infection … with Bill ending up in the ICU at Fair Oaks Hospital on Thurs, Jan 24, getting major doses of antibiotics and blood transfusions.
Our dear “Muschtash Man” Bill was officially diagnosed with advanced Stage IV pancreatic cancer on Thurs, Jan 31.

The good news is that he is overcoming the blood infection and has managed to get strong enough to be released from the hospital on Friday, Feb 1. This might not surprise you: He was determined to escape and made that project happen!

We want to acknowledge the doctors, nurses and technicians who have helped him. We also want to acknowledge the dear family members and friends who have already helped us at the hospital and home, and who are praying for Bill. We want to give special gratitude to our dear friend and doctor, Mike Amedeo, whose advice led us to go to the emergency room when we did, which we believe saved Bill’s life. His visits to the hospital and medical interpretations have helped guide us and make this health journey a little less horrendous.

We are also encouraged already because of the reach out from IBM’s staff, including the Watson Oncology Research Team, who are helping to guide us to the best care approach. We also appreciate others who are making recommendations for the best doctors and cancer programs.  

Time is of the essence, so we have to mainly focus on next steps in this battle. This limits our ability to communicate as much as we would like with you individually. Hence, this CaringBridge website.

Please uphold Bill in the light and in your prayers.