Lori and Matt

“I really had to take a deep breath and sit with the uncomfortable.” That’s how Lori Bogan recalls the moments after the two-year rollercoaster ride that was her husband Matt’s pancreatic cancer diagnosis, his passing and the days and the myriad of unexpected experiences that followed.  

“It’s extremely challenging. You have to sit and lean into that feeling,” the mother of two explains. “You had all these plans and things were going the way they were supposed to and then they weren’t. I wanted to have a breakdown and I couldn’t.” Before her husband’s terminal illness, Lori, like so many spouses, was a self-described happy wife with a big Italian heart. She had to immediately transform into a dynamic caregiver and confidante, focusing solely on doing whatever it took to make Matthew well. Simultaneously, Lori had to become a tiger mom focused on protecting her children from the trauma of losing their beloved father.

“I was on fire. I was no joke,” Lori recalls after her family was hit with the news of her husband’s diagnosis. “We were just in shock.” Lori immediately began pursuing treatment and despite feeling numb, exhausted, and emotionally drained, she remained relentless throughout varied trials, radiation and the weekly 56-hour chemotherapy treatments Matt endured. Lori remembers one night lying next to her husband and just listening to him breathe. The quiet was broken when he whispered, “Thank you.” In a surprised tone, she responded asking, “For what?” Matt answered, “For doing what I can’t.”

As parents, Lori and Matt had sacrificed it all and as a result, their life as husband and wife, and as parents to their daughters Krista and Brianna, was good. From the beginning of their marriage they were intentional and strategic in their plan to build their future. Matt vigorously pursued his career as an IT systems architect and Lori, who held a degree as a dental hygienist, elected to stay home and care for their girls. The New Jersey couple was determined to do what was necessary to become financially strong and secure.  While Matt’s software job involved constant travel, he rose professionally including a significant promotion at Microsoft that would change their lifestyle dramatically, most especially because it meant no more travel. Matt would finally be able to stay home with his family.  “One morning we were looking at our investments and he looked at me and said ‘We’re millionaires. We did it!”

Then in July 2019, Matt was diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer, shoving the family in an unexpected and devastating new direction. “It was all coming together. You have the feeling like I can’t believe we’re so lucky and then the whole carpet gets yanked.” Upon confirming the severity of his diagnosis, Lori took immediate action. “Something happened to me. I snapped.” Matt began chemotherapy just a little over two weeks after his diagnosis. Lori quickly transformed from loving wife to warrior advocate.

“When I’m in shock, I can’t stop,” says Lori adding, “Matt was immobile.” They prioritized starting treatment immediately and how to tell the girls. “It’s very difficult to deliver the message that your father has Stage 4 pancreatic cancer because you know what the outcome is going to be.”

Lori and Matt met when both were in their early 20s. Lori had “broken away” from her strict Italian upbringing and ventured out into the world only to return a year or so later. “I realized I had nobody telling me what to do. I was eating cookies for dinner and learned to smoke cigarettes. I neglected to study,” she says laughing. Then one night while bowling with friends she was introduced to her future husband and by his own brother.

She says they were polar opposites. “I am five foot nothing, a big-mouth Italian girl and here he was six feet one, blonde hair, blue eyes. I was almost afraid to like him as much as I did because I didn’t know if we were going to work.”

But they became “thick as thieves almost instantly.” Within six months Matt told her ‘I’m falling in love with you. I don’t want you dating other people.” Lori agreed, finished her schooling, and then married Matt.

“We never broke up and we never looked back.”  Years later, after working so hard to build the life they wanted, Lori found herself working even harder to save her husband’s life. “He was the love of my life. We would have been married 25 years in October 2020. I think he was really hoping to make it to that milestone anniversary,” she says ruefully. “It’s been a challenge. I’m young; I buried him at 49.”

“I wanted to have a
breakdown but couldn’t.”

As the family worked through his grueling treatment schedule and his deteriorating health, the couple’s two daughters worked to deal with the unthinkable and spent time with their beloved father all with the mission of trying to preserve a sense of normalcy. “I wanted to make his last months on earth enjoyable but because of COVID, getting him out and about was impossible.” She says Matt and the family tried to “attack a lot of this with humor, all the way through.” So, she caved to his request for a dog — a collaborative effort with his children. “I could never say no to those blue eyes; I’m a sucker.”

Matt endured “brutal, just brutal” bouts of chemotherapy and radiation treatments. As he got sicker, Lori recalls, he clung to her not wanting help from anyone else. Yet Lori still marvels at the strength Matt exhibited at a moment when she least expected it.  While working in their kitchen during an in-home hospice meeting between Matt and the care organization’s representative, Lori overheard her husband ask, “Is there anything I can do? I get agitated and I don’t want to upset my wife.”

Keeping their sense of humor was important to the family.

Lori was stunned, looking at Matt and thinking “Did he really just say that?” She quickly reassured him that he didn’t upset her.  As virtually every caregiver knows, becoming frustrated while caring for a loved one just happens.  “This man loves me so much that instead of asking all these other things, instead he wants to know what he can do to, not make me have to leave the room and take deep breaths…is he kidding me?”

Ultimately their destiny became clear. Matt broached Lori about halting treatment and just as they had always done, they made their decision together. Lori was forced to handle the  business of Matt’s passing.  “We had to discuss his wants – I was still praying for a miracle, but I knew it wasn’t going to be long.” She bought two burial plots.

For instance, Matt made clear he did not want to be dressed in a suit when he was buried. “Put me in something comfortable,” he told her. “So, I let the girls pick what he was wearing; I think it’s a “Data Is The New Bacon” T-shirt,” she laughs.

Meanwhile, planning his funeral service sparked an array of emotions, decisions and challenges including whether to be transported to the service in a limousine, something Lori adamantly rejected.  “I’m like, this is not a celebration.” Lori chose instead to drive Matt’s beloved souped-up Jeep Wrangler, which she also left on display at the service. “Everyone knew how much he loved it; it was his baby.” Her daughters later forbade their mother from donating the vehicle for a fundraiser for the Let’s Win Foundation, a pancreatic cancer not-for-profit organization.

In a big picture reflection, Lori vividly remembers how difficult it all was — protecting Matt, their children, dealing with everyone else’s emotions and the many unanticipated awkward moments when friends and family did or said the wrong thing.  “I wanted to have a breakdown, but I couldn’t. I was so angry that we didn’t beat this.”

“I thought we were going to be that one percent that would beat the illness because I did everything right, to the letter. The joke’s on me; we did do all that, but now I’m all by myself.”

Today, Lori and her girls still grieve and still miss Matt, but they are also united in finding their way forward.  She took the girls on a trip of a lifetime to Iceland, which included seeing humpback whales and the Northern Lights. After the sky lit up and their guide commented that there hadn’t been much activity in quite some time, Lori instantly knew the vistas were Matt’s doing and told her girls it was their dad driving the beauty they were witnessing.

Lori says she still talks to Matt to bounce off ideas, which she knows others find to be odd. “I think that it’s just changing the way you communicate with your loved one, your spouse – and without feeling weird about it. It now feels very natural to talk to him.”

Lori feels her biggest responsibility is “holding our history now by myself.” She has kept a journal throughout. “I want to make sure that our history is still there when I’m not here anymore. She is also content with all that she has learned.

“I learned that now you have to be an advocate for yourself. It’s not a club you want to be in, but now you are.”