Trying to Understand
Exploring and learning about life

Please join us to celebrate the life of Paige Dersham Wednesday June 12 11am-1pm Being a teacher was her heart and soul, and Steck was...

Paige had written a few words to finish this blog. "I was so naive when I started this blog about my cancer journey. In my heart I...

July 25, 2023 I have never been a goal setter. I mean I have not been aimlessly going through life but I don’t sit down and think about goals and how to break them down to meet them. My goals are more spur of the moment ideas and then I just do it, not a lot of planning. An example would be I read a flier about National Board Certification forever ago, and pretty much decided on the spot to do it. I had no real idea just what I had signed up for, but it worked out. I have ha

June 3 2023 I would like to wake up for just one day and have a normal day with no reminders of my cancer. Just one day. I am not asking to be rid of the cancer, I know that is an impossibility, I just want a day where I forget all day that I have cancer and the day is just an old normal day. I wake up every morning and I am immediately reminded of my cancer as I untangle my oxygen tube and my TPN tube from each other so I can get up, which I have to do very carefully so I do

April 19 2023 I am mid way through my second treatment cycle of a phase 1 study drug, living the lab rat life. This new treatment drug is called SGN-B7H4V, yeah so new it doesn’t have a name yet. It has been tested on animals and a few humans, mostly to determine side effects and efficacy. I am in the study that is looking at the best dosage. So I know I am getting the real thing, there are no placebos in this study, which is good. They are also continuing to study side effec

March 6 2023 Here is another of the things we don’t think about when we do not have cancer or some other serious medical issue - what it does to a person's body image. I am going to talk about it from a cancer point of view as that is my lens but I am sure this is true of any disease or its treatment that changes a person’s body. I went into this cancer healthy and happy with my body. Yeah I had gained a couple extra pounds after menopause but nothing I was unhappy with. I l