For those of you who haven’t already heard, Steve was recently diagnosed with Stage IV esophageal cancer.
He started having intermittent trouble swallowing in the middle of June but put off going to the doctor as he was working a lot. On July 6th, he had a fall in his house which requiring emergency surgery, and the tumor was discovered. At the time, we didn’t know how far it had progressed, but further tests and procedures showed that it had already spread to distant lymph nodes and into his liver. As a result, it was inoperable.
The plan was to start a chemo regimen on August 5th, but he was unable to ever stabilize enough to begin any treatment. His kidneys, liver, and lungs were all beginning to fail, and he was fighting an infection as well. While thankfully he was never in any pain or discomfort, he did have trouble breathing so he was put on dialysis and oxygen to help. He was completely lucid through everything but labored to talk because of his trouble breathing.
On Tuesday, August 4th, we made the difficult decision along with Steve to move him into hospice care. He rested peacefully that night and passed away quietly Wednesday morning to join Dub. While selfishly, we would give anything to keep him around longer, in the end it was probably for the best that everything moved so rapidly.
We originally started this CaringBridge journal as a way to quickly and efficiently update everyone on Steve’s progress, but unfortunately his cancer was a little quicker than us. I can’t put into words how much we appreciate everyone’s thoughts and prayers and I apologize if we are not able to personally respond to all the calls and texts we've received. We are truly blessed.
We have not planned any immediate services but we will post updates here with details if that changes. The one thing Steve made us promise to do was a celebration on the beach in Pensacola. Once scheduled, everyone will be invited to come and share your memories at one of his favorite places in the world.
