ABOUT ME
WHO AM I...
Hello, and welcome to my page. Who am I is a question that many people ask themselves throughout life. We all go through seasons; journeys of self discovery, defining moments, different types of education, religion, as well as pain and sorrow…all trying to determine who we are.
I’m Marshall, and I’m just like you! Yes, even though I have this site and I’m at a different point in my journey, we are all the same. We are just people looking for answers to questions, hoping for miracles, and trying to fight through the diagnosis, the pain, the fear, and the sorrow and confusion of all those around us. For some of us this journey is easier, for some reason or another we have been graced with the ability to face the inevitable with a strength that we may have not always known we had!
I could tell you all the things that I’ve done in my life…my accomplishments, failures, regrets, and my pain…but really none of it matters. Suffice it to say, I’m a man, a father, a veteran, and a friend!!!
Let me be your voice of reason, when all reason seems lost! Let me be the ears that listen, when you feel no one is! Let me be that hand that lifts you up, when you begin to fall! And, most of all, Let my light help fill your darkness, until you can fill it with your own!!!
I don’t know where you are on your journey, but I do know that journey through the darkness is better when your holding the hand of another. So take my hand, together we will find the light that will brighten the darkness. This path will be walked by us together and by others long after we are gone.
From the day we are born we begin dying, so yes we all are dying – when we are young, we feel invincible, that nothing can stop us! We have a sense of defiance in each of us, that injury or DEATH can not touch us! As we grow older, as situations arise, and the fear of the unknown begins to set in that defiant nature starts to subside! It is than that we find ourselves afraid and questioning everything.
It is my hope that each of you that I touch with my words can re-engage that defiant spirit in you! That you can face whatever is going on in your life with that spirit, and that you learn that the best living comes from DYING DEFIANTLY!!!
Dying Defiantly is a charitable organization that helps terminally diagnosed veterans, civilians, and their families at no cost to them
MY DIAGNOSIS...
So in July of 2021, I was diagnosed with Inoperable, incurable Stage IV Perihilar Cholangiocarcinoma (Bile Duct Cancer aka “the Beast”). This rare form of cancer is encasing my bile ducts, and portal vein. I am hearing that 9 to 15 months is the standard life expectancy for individuals with this form of cancer. We are continuing to move forward in treatment of this incredibly aggressive cancer and will keep you updated as more is known.