So I have been keeping a very big secret for the past two months. Only a handful of people know, but we got some VERY good news today, so I am going to share. On July 7th my father, Larry Starkweather, was diagnosed with a very rare cancer, Mucosal Melanoma. He was diagnosed at stage III and based on everything we read the prognosis was very poor. In the past three months he has undergone three surgeries to try to get his cancer to clear margins (removing all traces of cancer cells). This morning he received the AMAZING news from his surgeon that his last surgery got him to clear margins. This is the best news we have had in months. It has been a devastating summer for my family dealing with this, and I chose to keep it private rather than have it public on FB, but now that we have good news to share I wanted to publicly thank all of my close friends who were with me through this over the summer. Your support mattered more than you know. It is the darkest of times to feel so alone when you are dealing with something that is as heart wrenching as a diagnosis like cancer. You made it easier for me. We have a long road ahead that may involve radiation, and other treatments, and will certainly involve years of PET scans and testing to keep my dad cancer free, but today we will celebrate the first bit of good news we have had in months. #grateful
Posted on: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 19:12:52 +0000