Longtime Connecticut meteorologist Geoff Fox has announced that he is in hospice care after battling pancreatic cancer for the better part of the last decade, but he says he has no plans on going anywhere anytime soon.
“Getting hospice care shows where I’m heading, not when I’ll arrive,” Fox, 75, wrote in one of two Facebook posts he made over the weekend. “At the moment other than my physical weakness the rest of me seems fine.”
“If you could bet on how long I’ll be under hospice care, I’d take the over,” he continued. “For the past few years I’ve been under palliative care — uneventfully.”
Fox began working as a TV meteorologist at WTNH in 1984 until his move to WTIC-TV in 2011. He was dismissed from the station 19 months later and later returned for a time to WTNH.
During his award-winning career, which included seven Emmy awards, Fox built a loyal fanbase. His two posts on Facebook over the weekend collectively drew nearly 4,000 comments from other users who expressed well wishes, prayers and offered many nostalgic stories about growing up and watching him as a weatherman.
In his posts, Fox said he read about 1,500 messages he received from former co-workers and “lots of names I’ve never seen before….”
“Thank you all for your prayers,” he wrote.
Fox was first diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2016 and said he is 2-0 against cancer. But recent PET scans show cancerous growths on his liver, lungs and pancreas, according to his posts.
“The problem is I’m too weak for chemo or any treatment for these new life-sized perils,” Fox wrote, adding that, with support from his family, he made the “difficult yet logical decision” to enter home hospice care.
According to his social media posts, Fox is “frail and weak,” standing nearly 5 feet, 9 inches tall and weighing only 130 pounds. He said the treatment he has been receiving for the past nine years has been “cumulatively taxing.”
“There are times I’m too weak to stand,” he wrote. “Too weak for surgery with general anesthesia to help my voice (again). It’s the kind of thing you can’t imagine until you’re there yourself.”
At the moment, Fox said he doesn’t feel any pain or have any symptoms.
“That will change over time,” he wrote.
Fox, who says he uses a walker or cane and needs the assistance of oxygen, receives weekly visits from a nurse. Although he said he will eventually need more care, which he said could be weeks or months away, he says he plans to live for as long as his body can hold out.
“I am in no rush to die,” he wrote.
Fox went on to say that treatment is “out of the question.”
“With hospice I’m given the opportunity to stay just drugged enough to avoid the worst,” he wrote. “And a guarantee I can die at home.”
“So, I’ve chosen how to die — out of pain. At the moment nothing is necessary. I feel fine.”
Fox said he will continue to provide his former viewers with updates when “there’s something to tell.”
