Wayne Schlicht 
If you’ve ever waited for cancer scan results, you know the feeling. The anxiety, the silence, the mental replay of every decision. This is what scanxiety feels like at 2 AM, when sleep won’t come and your mind won’t stop. The Night Before the Scan It’s 2 AM. I can’t sleep. I’m sitting in the … Read more
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
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
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
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
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
Losing More Than a Paycheck This part of my journey is something most people never hear about. When Social Security officially determined that I am disabled, it felt like both a lifeline and a punch to the gut. Stage four cancer, loss of speech clarity, and the partial loss of my left arm and shoulder … Read more
When the Quiet Isn’t Peaceful Some nights, the quiet feels like a blanket. Other nights, it feels like a weight. The night before writing this, I lay in bed while the world slept around me, and all I could hear was the heavy thud of my own heart. The kind of night when your body … Read more
On November 1, I turned fifty seven. To most people, it is just another birthday. Cake, candles, maybe dinner out. Nothing particularly life changing. For me, it felt like reaching the top of a mountain I was never sure I would see again. A slow, painful climb fueled by stubborn hope, faith, and the people … Read more
How a Common Veterinary Drug Became Part of My Cancer Recovery Story When I began my battle with stage 4 cancer, I prayed every day for God and the universe to show me a path to healing. Over time, that path revealed itself through faith, perseverance, medical care, and a combination of traditional and alternative … Read more