September 25th, 2020
Despite the devastating news, Pete and his family did an extraordinary job searching for connections in order to move quickly to set up appointments with the best Oncologists in the world in order to gather information and formulate a plan of action to fight back. After speaking with multiple doctors, Pete and his family decided to proceed with treatment at Memorial Sloan Kettering with additional care, observation, and input from Dana Farber.
Shortly after, the medical team performed a small surgical procedure to insert a medi-port into his chest for treatments and also decided last minute to perform a laparoscopy in order to further analyze the tumor and get extra samples for the biopsy. The outcome from the laparoscopy was far from the initial positive diagnosis of Stage 2 cancer – cancerous cells were found on the exterior layers of the esophagus, which meant that the cancer was no longer localized and had possibly shed into the thoracic cavity. As a result of this finding, Pete’s diagnosis was updated to Stage 4 metastatic cancer.
These were incredibly difficult times to overcome, but everyone who knows Pete knows how strong, hard headed and stubborn he is. This diagnosis has been no exception – as soon as he started his treatment, he set his mind to push through it, stay strong and fight hard.
Peter has responded incredibly well to his chemotherapy and so far has been lucky to have limited side effects. There is nothing that can stop him and nothing that will bring him down – the mental strength he has shown is inspiring.
He will continue to remain positive, stubborn, and hard headed. With the love and support of his wife, cat, family, and friends he will keep fighting through and be the one in a million!
Creation of The Baer Project:
“Once I heard about Pete’s diagnosis I wanted to help out any way I could. After several conversations, we decided instead of focusing on his plight we would help provide a vehicle for children to attend Summer camps – the camps we enjoyed dearly in our youth. The Baer Project was soon created with enthusiasm from Pete, his family and friends. My goal is to establish, maintain and grow a nonprofit in Pete’s name which will have a lasting legacy.”
Johnny Harnois – Director
Pete and Johnny, October 2012 – Newport, RI
STATUS UPDATE:
In early May 2021, a second promising CT scan showed more improvement. Peter’s case was brought up to the thoracic oncology tumor board at Dana Farber by Dr. Peter Enzinger. All doctors agreed that Peter’s case was unique and given his positive reaction to treatment it was worth a shot to offer him a more promising future and a second chance of life. The following week Peter met with the two top doctors in the field of robotic surgery – Dr. Jiping Wang and Dr. Jon Wee (the A-Team), and a June surgery was scheduled.
On June 9th, Peter had an 11 hour surgery. The surgery consisted of a robotic-assisted esophagectomy. During the procedure, the A-Team removed one-third of Peter’s esophagus and part of his stomach (the part that was contaminated plus a margin for clearance) and the doctors reconnected everything together by pulling the stomach upwards and reattaching it to the esophagus. After the pathology report came back, they learned that Peter’s tumor had reduced more than 60% during the months he did treatment. There were not any traces of cancer outside the esophagus walls, nor any peritoneal disease in the stomach which was found in the initial assessment when Peter was first diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic cancer.
The surgery was extremely successful! The A-Team was able to successfully remove all affected areas and there were no signs of metastasis. Eight days after surgery, Peter and Marie-Claire made their way back to Connecticut. As expected, Peter recovered quickly and arrived at Raquette Lake Camp on July 10th.
On August 4th, after a long journey with many ups and downs, many battles, and a lot of stubbornness, mental strength, and a positive attitude, Dr. Enzinger pronounced Peter cancer-free!!
Peter defied all odds. He became his own statistic and plans to continue to do so.
The Baer Project 