Four years and 115 infusions after a stage IV esophageal cancer diagnosis, Norm Krimbill is living his best life, thanks to a clinical trial at the University of Colorado Cancer Center.
“The treatments have worked well, and I attribute the success not only to the medication I'm taking, but I have a really good attitude,” says Krimbill, 83, who lives in Highlands Ranch. “I'm very stoic, and I've been through a lot in my life. As an 83-year-old, I feel like I'm on borrowed time anyway. I just accept that stuff happens, and there's nothing you can do about it. You just march on and do the best you can.”
Krimbill, 83, and his wife recently returned from a three-week trip to Hawaii, an annual vacation destination and a rare break from Krimbill’s every-other-week chemotherapy infusions.
“When I skip one of my infusions, it clears out a lot of that chemotherapy in my system, and I feel really good,” he says. “When we went to Hawaii this time, I was able to get out and do a lot of walking, and I was in the hot tub every day, working on a tan.”
Like many people with esophageal cancer, Krimbill was diagnosed after finding it increasingly difficult to swallow his food. An endoscopy detected a tumor at the junction of the esophagus and the stomach, and a follow-up PET scan found that the cancer had spread to the lymph nodes, spine, and ribs.
Krimbill came to the CU Cancer Center for treatment, where surgery and radiation were ruled out as treatment options because of how much the cancer had spread throughout his body. Fortuitously, CU Cancer Center member Sunnie Kim, MD, had just opened a clinical trial for patients with metastatic esophageal cancer, looking at the effectiveness of adding an oral drug called tucatinib to the standard-of-care treatment: chemotherapy plus Herceptin, a targeted therapy that blocks the activity of the HER2 protein to prevent cancer cells from growing.
“HER2-positive cancers have uncontrolled cell proliferation, and tucatinib blocks the pathway that leads to unchecked cell growth,” says CU Cancer Center member Alexis Leal, MD, the medical oncologist who is overseeing Krimbill’s treatment. “Herceptin binds to the receptor on the outside of the cell, and tucatinib works on the receptor on the inside of the cell, so they impact the receptor in different ways to create a more complete response.”
After just a few treatments, Krimbill’s metastatic disease disappeared, leaving just the primary esophageal tumor. That cancer will never be fully cured, Leal says, but it hasn’t grown since Krimbill started treatment.
“The average lifespan of someone with metastatic disease with standard care, if you look at the data, was around a year-and-a-half at that time,” Leal says. “He started with us in April of 2021, and here we are in 2026, and he still is on the first-line treatment. He tolerates the treatment incredibly well, and he hasn't had any detriment to his quality of life.”
Over the past four years, Krimbill has become something of a celebrity in the cancer infusion center at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital, recognized as much for the success of his treatment as the chipper attitude he brings to the tedious process that can result in side effects like lethargy and diarrhea.
“Whenever I go in, it's like old home week,” Krimbill says with a laugh. “All the nurses know me and that I've been there 115 times. They just shake their heads and say, ‘Oh my gosh, you're still upright.’ Well, they don't say that, but I can see it on their faces. I just go through and smile and say hi to them. I say, “I just came back to see you and see what's going on, and while I’m here, go ahead and give me some infusions.”
Those trips have added significance for Krimbill, a retired Navy officer who once served as chief of security at the former Fitzsimons Army Medical Center in Aurora — now the site of CU Anschutz.
“When he had his 100th infusion, we got a card for him, and a lot of us from the clinic signed it, and some of the research team signed it too, and there were a lot of really sweet messages that were written in it for him,” Leal says. “You could tell that he really enjoyed it and was taken aback, because he didn't expect us to do anything for him. He is an absolute delight, and one of our patients everyone just loves.”
As is his way, Krimbill takes it all in stride, though he knows he’s fortunate to still be able to take annual trips to Hawaii years after being diagnosed with a stage IV cancer.
“When I heard stage IV — everything I ever heard about stage IV is a death knell, where people lasted a week or two,” he says. “I figured, the heck with it — I'm going to just disregard that and keep going.”