Reclining on a gurney as he awaited tests, Frank Di Bella recalled his long journey with cancer as the first patient at the new City of Hope Orange County Hospital on its opening day Monday.
“Unbelievable,” he said of being wheeled in as the first patient at the new cancer research and treatment center in Irvine, as staff cheered him on with pom poms.
“It was the first time people were cheering for me going into a hospital,” he said with a chuckle.
Di Bella has raised about $12 million since 2015 for City of Hope with his Let’s Be Frank About Cancer nonprofit, which he started after a torturous treatment that left him cancer-free for about a decade.
Di Bella recounted hours on the road from Newport Beach to the City of Hope in Duarte, which he scheduled on Saturdays to avoid an even worse commute.
He said he was taking an experimental drug with side effects so painful he called his doctor, Sumanta K. Pal, and said, “I can’t take this anymore. I’d rather die. If you can prove to me it works I’ll keep taking it.”
So the physicians showed him a scan and his radiologist told him, “Frank, you’re cancer free.”
“The next morning I started the charity,” he said.
Di Bella had cancer in his lung, spine and shoulder, and was nearly left a paraplegic.
“I was given four to six months to live,” he said.
The former accountant to actor Jerry Lewis credits the comedian with getting him connected to City of Hope.
Last year, he was diagnosed with bladder cancer and had that removed, and then he had tumors in his brain, which were also removed. He was at the new hospital Monday to be treated for the side effects of the drugs he will have to take for the rest of his life, he said.
“All the money I raise goes to research” through City of Hope, he said. “If not for City of Hope I’d be dead.”
And if not for the new hospital, “I’d be on the road to Duarte right now,” he said.
And what was he looking forward to the most at the new hospital, which was designed to have the feel of a fancy hotel?
“I get to taste the food” in the cafeteria, he said with a laugh.
Like Di Bella’s journey to health, the new specialty hospital went through its own ups and downs since the project got started in 2018, President of City of Hope OC Annette Walker said.
“Very emotional,” she said after Di Bella was wheeled in for the first appointment. “We’ve been on this since 2018. It’s pretty amazing.”
In 2018, “this was all just dirt,” she said, pointing outside of the hospital. `Now we have all of this. I’m so grateful I had the opportunity to do this.”
Walker said Di Bella was instrumental in recruiting City of Hope to Orange County.
“So for him to be the first patient, it’s very meaningful,” she said.
The groundbreaking for the hospital was in August 2022, and it opened on time “as promised,” Walker said with pride.
Starting construction during the pandemic proved challenging at times, she said.
“The supply chain was always an issue,” she said, adding there were two rainy seasons to contend with as well.
“There have been a lot of things that could have stopped us, but God blessed City of Hope… Somehow it all worked out. This is such a great day for Orange County. When we look back on this day all of this will be amazing.”
With an 18% increase in cancer diagnoses in Orange County expected over the next decade, the timing couldn’t be better for a dedicated facility here, she said.
“We came in response to a community need,” she said.
The increase in cancer diagnoses can be mostly attributed to aging, Walker said, adding that Orange County residents find it a “great place to live” and aren’t leaving.
Dr. Edward S. Kim, physician in chief and senior vice president of City of Hope Orange County, said it will be a hub for many in the sunbelt states as well as from overseas, he said.
The new Irvine hospital will “expose more in Orange County to cutting-edge research,” Kim said.
Science is all about “momentum,” and the two ways to keep it going is with “intellectual investment” in aspiring caretakers but also for researchers, Kim said.
The hospital is on a 72-acre campus and is connected to the City of Hope Orange County Lennar Foundation Cancer Center, which opened in August of 2022.
The new hospital will offer CAR-T cell therapy and transplants as well as complex surgeries done by world-renowned experts. It can also offer patients advance immunotherapies and novel clinical trials.
The six-story hospital has 73 beds on 174,000 square feet.