Gary and Merle Selvaag Gary Selvaag

The top story EVERY DAY since March 13th, 2020 has been Covid-19, or the Delta variant, or now the Omicron variant. Hospitals and their medical staffs have been overworked and increasingly understaffed as more and more people succumb to sickness or just plain stress .. as we move towards 21 months of this way of living. For our family, Covid played a role in our lives, but it took the passenger seat, as CANCER entered our vocabulary and every thought.  The summer of 2020 began with Gary having painful indigestion in June, which was joined by low back pain. August 17th was the first day we heard the word cancer uttered, and the diagnosis was given to us August 31st. The initial diagnosis was not ultimately the type of cancer this is.  Even after 2 weeks of tests at Mayo, and many tests done in Fargo at both Essentia and Sanford, no doctor was able to definitively tell us what beast we are dealing with. The best guess they ultimately deduced: Epitheliod Sarcoma of the Duodenum of unknown origin, Stage 4. Gary, along with all of us who love him, is in for the fight of his life. The fall/winter of 20-21 saw Gary in the hospital time and time again. Unfortunately, the cancer and chemo were really tough on his body, and he lost weight almost before our eyes. Between bleeds and clots, he was on the tightwire between needing blood thinners and not. It was a tough job for his doctors to decide how to treat him.

The evening of May 3, 2021, Gary suffered a major stroke that brought him to the hospital ER, and he was ultimately admitted to a room on 6th floor the next day to take his final labored breaths. He died about 7:30 pm on May 4, 2021.