• Hello.  I'm a 53 year old guy who is now two years beyond my life expectancy. I'm alive because of:

• Family and dear friends who have supported me during my struggle with head and neck cancer.  My wife has truly saved my life more than once, being at my side through the worst of treatments. My "kids" (29 and 31 but still kids? Sorry guys) now support me more than I do them and I love them like crazy (weird "gifts" you get from terminal diseases).
• Doctors and nurses that don't mind my constant questions about my treatment (doctors do make the worst patients!).  
• Spiritual leaders who guided me through many "dark nights of the soul."
• Before this illness, some would say I was pretty normal:
  • I was raised on a small farm outside a small town in Iowa (Lake View, population 1,200).  Going to "the city" meant Carrol, Iowa where 10,000 lived.  More importantly, it had a movie theater! Iowa was a great place to grow up.

        Toe head turned fast food server (Yikes!) -> BIG!       Learned to diet at an early age!   

• I was blessed with a crazy good memory that allowed me to get through college, medical school, psychiatric training, and graduate school in statistics (true nerdsville!).
• My work focused on treating the severely mentally ill (schizophrenia and severe manic depressive disorder) and trying to find better treatments.  I was lucky enough to receive funding that allowed me to be a full time researcher for almost 10 years.

                                                                                                                   

My wife & I talked with "good people" about my career choice.....,,,,,,,,,,,,,..Beards mandatory for Psychiatry

• Most of my work with patients was at Rochester Psychiatric Center, a most excellent institution (yes, excellent and a state psychiatric hospital!  You read/heard me right!).
  
• My working days were brought to a premature halt (in my view, maybe all too soon to some) by head and neck cancer.  It was advanced when I noticed the lump in my neck and I had the "it's no longer cure, but living with cancer" discussion over three years ago.  I''ve survived much longer than expected, but now I've exhausted the last of the standard treatments, with my last testing showing the tumor's relentless progress and explaining new pains I've been experiencing.  
  

                  I still have the "Jason" mask for Halloween

                            Radition treatment can be a bit creepy!              But there is life (basketball) after treatment!

• I now face the decision between experimental treatment (guinea pig?  Maybe payback/karma for my past research endeavors?) or letting the cancer take its "natural course."  I still have some hope that a cure/miracle will occur, but spend more time praying that I can learn and develop from this experience, which we all will face in our unique way eventually.