Bensalem Man Laughs in Face of Terminal Cancer

The running joke in Barry Hecht’s house is that he’s not sick, he just has stage IV lung cancer. 

“I feel wonderful,” the 68-year-old Bensalem resident said. “I walk the dog half a mile every day. He’s the one keeping me young.” 

Hecht, a retired kitchen and bathroom salesman, began his battle with cancer seven in November 2006. Hecht discovered he had lung cancer after a scan for kidney cancer inadvertently showed a nodule on his lung. He underwent surgery to remove the upper lobe of his left lung, followed by kidney surgery.

Hecht and his wife Ruby–who this week celebrate their 20-year wedding anniversary–had a return to normalcy for close to five years afterward.

In July 2011, while undergoing heart surgery, Hecht’s surgeon noticed irregularities in his lymph nodes and had them biopsied. Proton radiation and chemotherapy began soon after. Despite the treatments, Hecht learned in April 2012 that his lung cancer was stage IV. 

Describing the proton radiation as a “beam that just goes after the cancer,” Ruby said the treatment was “supposed to be the next greatest thing.”

“For us it wasn’t,” she said. “Or maybe it was because Barry’s still here.”

Because of a KRAS mutation, Barry was told that the chemotherapy options available would be ineffective at fighting his cancer. According to an article in the American Thoracic Society Journals, patients with the KRAS mutation “fail to benefit” from chemo.

But, to talk to Hecht, he doesn’t seem to mind.

“No more treatments for me,” he said. “There’s just laughing every day and my wife is a wonderful caregiver.”

The Hechts will step up their positivity next month as part of the 10-member team, Barry’s Bandits in the Pennsylvania Lung Cancer Partnership’s eighth annual “Free to Breathe” run/walk in Philadelphia, held in conjunction with Lung Cancer Awareness Month in November.

The goal is to raise money for lung cancer research and build awareness of the disease, according to the couple.

“When people think of lung cancer, they think of smokers. But that’s not true,” Barry said, calling one’s likelihood to be diagnosed “the luck of the draw.”

“There are so many people out there with lung cancer who never smoked a day in their life,” said Hecht, who quit smoking 25 years ago.

According to the Pennsylvania Lung Cancer Partnership, “if you have lungs, you can get lung cancer.”

Lung cancer accounts for 27 percent of all cancer-related deaths, outpacing death rates for breast, colon and prostate cancers combined, according to the association.

Despite his bleak prognosis, the Hechts remain positive and choose “quality of life before quantity,” according to Ruby.

“If Barry was going through chemo now … we would be in and out of the hospital every weekend or every day,” she said. “Quality is what we look for. We have quality now.”

If you go

The Free to Breathe 5k run/walk and one-mile walk will be held on Sunday at Fairmount Park in Philadelphia. Check-in begins at 7 a.m. Click here for more information. So far Barry’s Bandits have raised $1,100 as a team. To contribute to the team’s fundraising, click here.