“I’m fully prepared to fight as hard as I can,” said Judge Frank Caprio, star of the reality TV show ‘Caught in Providence’
Beloved Rhode Island traffic judge Frank Caprio revealed that he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
On Wednesday, the star of the reality TV show Caught in Providence, posted an emotional video on Instagram sharing his diagnosis came around his birthday last month, which is typically “one of the happiest days of the year for me.”
“This birthday is a little different than any other I have ever had,” Caprio, 87, said. “Quite recently, I was not feeling well and received a medical examination and the report was not a good one. And so I have been diagnosed with cancer of the pancreas, which is an insidious form of cancer.”
Caprio shared that he has a “wonderful team of doctors” taking care of him as he undergoes treatment in both Rhode Island and at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute — part of Massachusetts General Hospital.
“I pray that God guides their thoughts and their hands in their treatment of me. I know this is a long road and I’m fully prepared to fight as hard as I can,” he said.
“One thing that people ask me is, ‘What can I do for you?’ First of all, I can’t thank all of you enough for your friendship and your kind messages. But I would ask each of you, in your own way, to please pray for me,” Caprio continued. “I am in need of the power of prayer, which I believe, in addition to the medical treatment that I’m receiving, is the most powerful weapon to help me survive this.”
Pancreatic cancer accounts for about 3% of all cancers in the United States and is more common in men than in women. More than 64,000 people a year are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and more than 50,500 are expected to die from it in 2023 alone, according to the American Cancer Society.
Symptoms — including intense back pain, loss of appetite, depression, fatigue, new-onset diabetes and jaundice — often don’t reveal themselves until after the cancer has reached an advanced stage.
