Still Here. Still a Father.

Father sitting with his two sons at sunset reflecting on faith, family, and surviving stage 4 cancer one year after being given four months to live.

I Was Never Supposed to See This Father’s Day. It is Father’s Day. And I am so thankful. This time last year, I was given four months to live. By the grace of God, a miracle, and one knowledgeable pharmacist, I am still here. I have had a year I was never supposed to have. … Read more

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Tuesday Is a Big Day

CT scan results for stage four cancer

There is something that happens when you have been living with stage four cancer long enough. You stop treating days as ordinary. You cannot afford to. Every morning you wake up, and your feet hit the floor, you understand in your bones that this day was not guaranteed. It is a gift. And you try, … Read more

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The CT Scan Results Are In

Stage Four Cancer CT Results

In the early morning hours of April 7, around 2 AM, I sat in a dark, quiet house and wrote to you. My wife and our oldest son were away in Tennessee helping her mom recover from hip replacement surgery, so it was just me, drenched in sweat, unable to sleep, six hours away from … Read more

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Christmas Reflections: Hope, Faith, and Gratitude

It’s Christmas Day, and I’m thinking about all of you. Every year, we hurry to shop for gifts, travel by plane and car, and spend hours cooking meals. When we gather, people reminisce about past Christmases. The good, the bad, and the funny. I have my share of all three. Like the Christmas I found … Read more

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Still Here This Christmas

It’s two days before Christmas, and I’m sitting here reflecting on a year I wasn’t sure I’d see the end of. On June 3rd, my 25th wedding anniversary, I got the biopsy results confirming what I feared most. Stage 4. The cancer had spread to my lungs and bloodstream. What should have been a day … Read more

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Twenty Percent

A Story of Faith, Food, and Finding the Other Half “You have a twenty percent chance of living.” Those words hung in the air. My oncologist had just explained the odds for Keytruda immunotherapy against my stage four cancer. Twenty percent. I sat there doing the math. A twenty percent chance of living meant an … Read more

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Chapter 1 Is Now Live: When Cancer Comes Back

CHAPTER 1: WHEN CANCER COMES BACK

By Wayne Schlicht – Seeking US-based literary representation. The Story Begins Today I’m sharing something that took more courage to write than anything I’ve ever put on a page. Chapter 1 of my memoir, Still Here: How Faith, Food, and Family Beat Stage Four Cancer, is now available to read in full on this site. … Read more

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Why Am I Here?

Why am I here? It’s November 23, and sometimes I look at my own life and still wonder how I am standing. I have gone through seventy radiation treatments, more than twenty chemotherapy infusions, and a five-hour radical neck dissection that changed the way I move, breathe, and speak. I am living with stage four cancer, … Read more

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