Louisville OBGYN diagnosed with terminal brain cancer hoping to 'get more time than I deserve'

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- After nearly three decades caring for women and delivery babies, a Louisville OBGYN got a life-changing diagnosis of her own.

Dr. Leigh Price's college-aged son noticed something was off in July. Price wasn't able to read her own credit card numbers.

"That day, it was like something's really changed," Price said.

Her husband, Dr. Tim Price, an emergency medicine doctor at UofL Health and professor and chief of the EMS division at the University of Louisville, took her to the ER right away. A few hours later, an MRI showed a mass.

Diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive, incurable form of brain cancer, Dr. Leigh Price quickly went from putting on her white coat to putting on a white mask for radiation treatments.

"She's such a trooper. She's tough," Dr. Tim Price said. "She's a woman of tremendous character."

Dr. Leigh Price never went back to Women First of Louisville, where she's practiced for the last 29 years. On July 21, thousands of her patients received a letter with the news.

"It's really hard for me, that I feel like ... that I super let them down," she said. "I asked God every day: 'How do I do this?' I don't know how to. ... You can't sit around. Like, the first two weeks were like a funeral."

As she continued chemotherapy and radiation every week day, Dr. Leigh Price's blurry vision turned into partial blindness on her right side. Spending time with her four children and five grandchildren became her new focus.

Her hope is that the youngest grandchildren will know how much she loved them, even if they might not fully remember. Her other hope is that they know to love God.

"It's hard for us all to understand why (cancer) is a part of life, but it is," she said. "I just try to live it out for them."

She and husband agreed they can't live in sadness.

"We've tried hard not to let our our thoughts about the future and what's potentially inevitably to come, what tomorrow brings, we've tried to not let that ruin today," he said.

"I just gotta walk through it best I can and hope I get more time than I deserve," she said.

Price hopes to participate in a clinical trial in Maryland later this year but she has to finish treatment and further tests before it begins. In December, the Prices are also planning a trip to Disney, one of Leigh's favorite places.