Gregg Shank

Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement.


Our sweet and gregarious Gregg was diagnosed on July 30th with two types of cancer, Large B-Cell Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, Stage 3 and Squamous Cell Throat Cancer. We are not sure of the stage for the Throat Cancer but Gregg has another type of biopsy next week which will hopefully give us more information.

Needless to say we were shocked and sad about the diagnoses and we're still adjusting to this new reality. At the same time we are trying to live our lives and enjoy the good things - we don't want it be the center of everything.

His team of doctors at Providence includes a Ear, Nose and Throat doctor, an Oncologist/Internist and a Radiation Oncologist. Gregg was diagnosed with Hep C several months ago so that had to be addressed in the treatment plan as well.  

We found out about the cancer right before we finally received the elusive Harvoni in the mail from India via a nice man in Tasmania. He has become the Dallas Buyers Club for Hep C. Seems that the pharmaceutical companies have carte blanche in our country to make life/death decisions based on profits, so by doing a lot of online sleuthing and double checking to make sure this guy was the real deal, we wired $900 to Tasmania and he came through for us .

For now they are starting with Chemotherapy next Thursday August 30th, which Gregg will receive every 3 weeks for 6 cycles  Then he will be treated for the throat cancer with radiation 5 days a week for 7 weeks. After that he will finally be able to start the Harvoni for his liver. 

We will be celebrating our 18th wedding anniversary on September 3rd and had booked a cruise to Alaska, the cruise Gregg has always wanted to go on. For now we will need to cancel it - even if he feels good enough to go, cruises are notorious for being a good place to catch a cold or flu. Once we have the all clear we will be on a plane or boat and get the hell out of Dodge for a nice long trip! We have joked about running away from all of this where they can't find us, but of course wherever we go there we'll be with the same challenges!  So for now we'll stay put, get through this, love each other and pray a lot. 

It can be challenging to keep everyone informed so are hoping this page will give our friends and family a place to check in on Gregg, leave him a message and get updates. 
We appreciate the love and support.