Jean Trebek, the wife of the legendary “Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek, spoke out this week to recall the moment that she realized something was “off” about her husband before he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last year.

In a blog post for “Guideposts,” Jean, 56, revealed that she knew something was “off” about Trebek, 80, while they were on a family vacation in Israel in December of 2018.

“We’d gone to Israel to visit the sites of the Holy Land in December 2018, taking our son and daughter, Matthew and Emily, then 27 and 24,” she began. “We’d finished dinner one night, and I looked across the table at Alex. His coloring seemed off. ‘You feeling okay?’ I asked.”

“‘I’m good,’” she remembered him telling her. “Alex is not one to complain. But he admitted that he was having some stomach pains. I figured, okay, we were in a different country. Maybe it was something he ate.”

When they got back to California, however, Jean said it was obvious that “Things were still not right.”

“His doctor ran some tests, then some more. We weren’t so worried that we canceled a trip to New York,” Jean said.

They then ended their trip early when they received a worrying call from Trebek’s doctor.

“It was there, in our hotel, that we got a call from his doctor. ‘We need to see you as soon as you get back from your trip. We have some concerns,’” Jean recalled. “He went in for a CT scan—all of this at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, not far from our house. The doctor called back within hours. ‘We need to talk,’ he said. We went back and got the news. Pancreatic cancer with a tumor that had spread to the soft lining of his stomach. Stage IV.”

Jean, who is a real estate project manager, admitted she was devastated when she first heard of the diagnosis.

“I wondered then how long we had,” she confessed. “More than a year and a half later, we’re still at it, every day a gift.”

Though she admitted that she has days where she is “really sad and angry,” she added that she tries to always look on the bright side using her faith.

“With each passing day, I have found so much to be grateful for. Alex’s work. Our kids, our friends, a sunset, a flower blooming in our garden,” Jean wrote. “This didn’t have to be a death sentence. It could be a life sentence. A constant reminder of how precious life is. The smallest things that I once took for granted now carry more meaning. I think that is how God keeps us in the moment. He focuses us with grace.”

Jean and Trebek have been married since 1990, and they have two children together. Last month, the “Jeopardy!” host credited her with saving his life.

“She’s kept me alive,” Trebek PEOPLE magazine. “If it weren’t for Jean, I’d had put myself out of this a long time ago.”