After Dad's Cancer Diagnosis, a Family Had Their Stomachs Removed — Here's How They Celebrate Thanksgiving (Exclusive)

"I'm so grateful," Kori Myers says. "My dad saved all of our lives."

Thanksgiving dinner will take longer than usual for the Myers family to eat this year.

Three members of the California City, Calif., family have had their stomachs removed after dad Greg Myers was diagnosed with stomach cancer in 2021. The food-loving family plans to gather and eat tiny bites of food, chew and chew, then return for a few more bites a few hours later.

“We were gorgers that became grazers,” says Kori Myers, Greg's daughter, 30. "We celebrate Thanksgiving for a week now because of how many leftovers we have — we all eat much less."

Mostly, the Myers family feels incredibly lucky to celebrate the holiday together,

"I'm so grateful," Kori says. "My dad saved all of our lives."

Greg Myers and his wife Kristie are foodies. The couple met in kindergarten, started dating senior year of high school, and married in 1993 when they were 21. They were both three-sport athletes — he played football, basketball and baseball, and she played volleyball, basketball and softball. “We were a pretty active family,” Kristie says. The couple and both of their children are black belts in Tae Kwon Do.

In February 2021, Greg Myers started having trouble swallowing. It felt like food was getting caught in his throat. “It got worse and worse and worse,” he says.

After three months, he went to his doctor thinking it was acid reflux. In June 2021, at 49, he had an endoscopy. Doctors found a 3-cm. mass at the junction of his stomach and his esophagus. About a month later, he was told it was stage 2 diffuse gastric cancer.

“It was devastating news,” says Greg Myers, now 52, an Air Force veteran who works as a software developer for the Air Force. “It was scary.”

He was referred to City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Research and Treatment Center in Antelope Valley, about 45 minutes from his home, and began chemo in August 2021.

After undergoing genetic testing as part of the Inspire Study, Greg learned her had CDH-I genetic mutation. People with the gene have about an 80 percent chance of developing diffuse stomach cancer. Women with the gene have about a 60 percent risk for developing lobular breast cancer.

Greg and Kristie also found out there was a 50 percent chance that either of their two children — Kori and their son Tyler, 28 — would test positive for the gene.

They both did.

Greg Myers had his las truly decadent family meal on Christmas 2021, two days before he had his stomach surgically removed. “We went all out,” says Kristie, 52, who works as a program manager in aerospace.

They served prime rib and mac and cheese and "over indulged,” Greg says.

Tyler's now wife, 28-year-old high school agriculture teacher, Amber Donat, adds, “We stuffed ourselves.”

Greg Myers had his stomach removed on December 27, 2021.

Two days later, on December 29, the children both had endoscopies and biopsies.

In Tyler, doctors found stage 1 stomach cancer cells. In Kori, they didn’t find stomach cancer — but according to research on this type of cancer, even if a biopsy is negative, cancer is likely still present, Kristie explains. "This type of cancer usually has zero symptoms until stage 3 or 4. Normally, by then, it's really difficult to beat."

Both children made the difficult decision to prophylactically have their stomachs removed.

"It was a tough choice," says Tyler Myers an administrative assistant for the Coast Guard and Air Force veteran. "I just didn't want to be waiting around to find out that one day I had cancer and it was too late."

Tyler Myers had his stomach removed in January 2022.

Kori Myers had her stomach removed in March 2022 — and five months later in August 2022, she had a double mastectomy, followed by breast reconstruction surgery in December 2022.

“It was really hard,” she says. "This was going to change the rest of my life whether I liked it or not." She had planned to spend 20 years serving in the Air Force. “I loved my job, loved being in the military,” she says.

But without a stomach, she has to be near a hospital and can no longer travel the world at a moment’s notice. A side effect of the gastrectomy is "dumping syndrome," she says. "If I eat something — careful as I can be — my body will try to reject it, my heart rate spikes and I get so exhausted and tired and I have to lay down. Since I can't tell when that's going to happen, it makes me non-deployable." She was medically retired from the military.

Kristie recently got a tattoo on her left arm of three seahorses — the marine creatures also do not have stomachs. And, she tattooed a giant octopus representing herself with her arms around them. “I felt like I needed to be an octopus," she says, remembering caring for her son and husband post-surgery.

The family members lost a lot of weight after having their stomachs removed. Before the surgery Tyler weighed 250 lbs.,, now he’s 160 lbs. Before his diagnosis, Greg weighed about 300 lbs., now he’s 165. Kori went from weighing 140 lbs. to 110 lbs.

They all still love food. Greg still cooks for his wife, even though he can't eat much. Kristie and Greg regularly send each other Instagram recipes and beautiful food pictures.

Now, Kori explains, the family front-loads meals with protein. Carbs and sugars are hard for them to process. But usually, she says, if they eat a little bit of protein first their body can handle carbs and sugars a little better. Since they can't eat salads or raw vegetables, they take vitamins to get the nutrients they need.

"The ability to digest solids is completely different when you don't have a stomach," says Dr. Gregory Idos, 48, gastroenterologist at City of Hope. "You have to alter your lifestyle. You have to alter your diet."

The stomach is where food is stored and broken down before it travels to the small intestine, which absorbs nutrients, the Cleveland Clinic explains. After a gastrectomy, people need to eat smaller more frequent meals.

Without a stomach, people can still eat solid foods, Idos says. High-protein, low-carb diets are easier for the body to absorb and prevent diarrhea. He says patients also have to make sure they have vitamin A and D and other 'fat soluble vitamins' because absorption is more difficult without a stomach.

"It's different for each patient, sometimes they can be okay with eating some solids, but for the most part, they'd have to grind it up or actually puree it for others to better absorb it," Idos says.

The Myers family says they now chew each bite about 100 times before swallowing. For Greg Myers, he says he just chews and chews and chews until the bite of food "feels mushy in my mouth and then I swallow — I've got a feeling for it now," he says.

After Greg had eight rounds of chemo, as well as the stomach-removal surgery, he was cancer-free for about a year. Then the cancer came back in the peritoneum, the lining of his abdomen.

He underwent 5 procedures known as hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC) in which his abdominal cavity was bathed in a heated, highly concentrated chemotherapy solution to eliminate residual cancer.

He was cancer-free again from August 2023 until one month ago. He has recently started chemo again.

“We’ll get through it,” Greg says. “I want people to know that when I got diagnosed, it was scary. But it gives me a lot of hope for the future.”

The family is advocating for genetic testing and regular screening for stomach cancer.

“I’m really passionate about early detection and getting insurance to pay for that testing that’s done – just like a colonoscopy,” Kristie says.

This Thanksgiving, the family plans to go camping together at Dirt Diggers in the desert near Ridgecrest, Calif.

“We’re still going to cook all day. We’re still going to eat all the things,” Kristie says.

The turkey will be made in a portable convection oven that uses charcoal. “We can all still eat it — just little tiny bites," Greg says.

And they will savor every moment they can be together.

Kori Myers says it sounds crazy, but she’s grateful that the tumor formed, and that her dad’s doctor didn’t just give him heartburn medicine, but sent him for additional testing.

“My dad saved all of our lives. It could have been in the next couple of years, that all of us could have been gone,” she says.

Tyler says he’s considered “cured” from his cancer. Kori Myers says that because of the pre-emptive surgeries, she will most likely never get the cancer.

“It’s really gratifying to know that they’re able to come together at Thanksgiving and be together knowing that we’re treating their cancer or preventing their cancer,” says Idos.

Greg's cancer is now considered stage 4. Right now he tries to eat 500 calories a day, but he gets the rest of his nutrition from IVs. He still cooks for his wife. His kids are trying to eat as many calories as they can.

“It’s extremely rare, but it happened," Kori says. "And it could happen to other families, and I just hope they can fight it like we did,” Kori says. “I feel so lucky."