Did he eat this Thanksgiving feast in 2021? He did. My calendar for that fall shows he was done with chemo, and he’d had the first of four bi-monthly therapeutic endoscopies at Ruby Memorial in Morgantown. 

We were filled with hope.

Surgeons who perform therapeutic endoscopies don’t just look at the esophagus, they also treat what they find, by freezing, cutting, or burning. Mike eventually was treated with all three options. The fourth procedure was clear.

But the PET scan he had the following spring wasn’t. And this feast turned out to be his last Thanksgiving.