(This is Suzy.  Here and there, I’ll be adding my own two cents to Steve’s blog.) Nothing is normal in 2020, so why should Thanksgiving be any different?  Since Steve will be in the middle of chemo and radiation by Real Thanksgiving, we decided to move it up a few weeks.  Thanksgiv-O-Ween was born.  (It […]

The good news is I am all caught up, blog-wise that is.  Friday, I had appointment for the radiation simulation.  Basically, simulation maps where the tumors and impacted lymph nodes are, where the good things are like my carotid artery, and sets up the correct dose of radiation – one that will kill the cancer, […]

In the post about my diagnosis, I commented on having given up making friends when I traveled for work.  A good friend from that time commented that I was mistaken. She said I had made close friends and that she was one of those close friends from that time. Gail made me realize sometimes I […]

Now that our treatment path is decided, the appointments are getting stacked up. I thought I would be excited for this day, but it actually makes me more nervous. It is getting real! Here are the appointments I have before the real fun begins: The silver lining is that we’ll be able to eat at […]

We’re in a holding pattern on which treatment path we should take, waiting to hear the findings from the Mayo Tumor Board on October 20th. One decision we have made is to stick with Mayo. Over the past week, I’ve begun to lean toward the surgery plus radiation option, instead of the radiation plus chemo […]

We all talk about how slow time is in the time of Covid, but the week seems to pass even more slowly. We started quarantining on March 16th, six months and five days before I noticed the lumps on my neck. Those six months seemed like years. Now time has really begin to crawl. At […]

It’s Monday, September 28th, day 9 of this fucked up journey.  The covid era is over for me, it’s the cancer era.  Covid is still there, and I will be incredibly careful, but I have cancer. That has and probably will continue to overwhelm each and every moment of my life.  I can’t seem to […]

It’s been a hell of a week. On Sunday September 20th,  I felt a lump under my jawline on my left side of my neck.  I was concerned, and my hand kept returning to the neck trying to figure it out.  I googled lumps on one’s neck and it said that if they are tender […]

In the Broadway play Hamilton, one of Suzy’s and my favorite lines is/was “Look around, look around, at how lucky we are to be alive right now.” Early in 2020 this made perfect sense, but as the pandemic gathered steam, it lost some of its luster. I struggle with the concept now as I have […]