P. Douglas Shears and his family have been fighting a heroic but mostly unseen battle since February 2006. Doug and his wife Laura have been fighting for their kids, their community and against cancer.  It is time now for us to help them in their fight.  

Fifteen years ago this February, Laura and Doug Shears who had three beautiful girls (Alli, Lizze and Maggie) welcomed their first and only son (Peter).  A week later the joy of this moment was taken away with Doug’s stage four cancer diagnosis. Since this terrible news, the Shears family have been fighting with strength and grace. Most of their community may not have even known about the surgeries, about the missed remissions and the miracles of his survival.   

Doug and Laura always put their children’s lives first.  Through every treatment and the many disappointing scans,  Doug continued to coach his children’s soccer and robotics teams. He also worked full-time as a mechanical engineer and later the director of strategic project development at Briggs and Stratton, a position he held since he graduated from Yale in 1992. Many of us have talked to Doug during these challenging years and have never known his pain. 

In the last 15 years, Doug has stayed positive and hopeful even though he never reached full remission.  He has always believed he would be in the 1% and beat this disease.  Doug has always been selfless, kind and quick with a nerdy dad joke. For those of you who live in Wauwatosa, you may have seen him riding around the neighborhood in his latest rebuilt moped or noticed the play house he built in his backyard.  His strength comes from his devotion to his family and his faith in God.  The family has also gotten strength from their supportive employers and a loving community that includes the Christ King Parish, Marquette High School and Divine Savior Holy Angels.

This spring, after years of unending chemotherapy treatment the Shears were dealt another blow.  Briggs and Stratton, the company Doug worked for almost 30 years, restructured and Doug lost his job. The company then filed for bankruptcy and the family also lost the badly needed severance pay. Their financial stability was taken during the most vulnerable point of Doug’s treatment. Since this spring Doug has been in constant pain from the growing cancer and treatments do not seem to be working.  The doctors strategized this fall to use a powerful combination of medication to slow the spread and also limit his painful reactions to the cancer drugs. His latest scan has not been positive and these latest treatments seem to be only making Doug weaker while the cancer is spreading. We remain hopeful and continue to pray that clinical trials are available.

It is hard for all of us to imagine such a fun-loving, Rugby-playing,  joyful man hurting and needing help.  He needs us and it is now our time to share the burden and to fight alongside the Shears family.  We are asking for the community of friends and family to make a donation to help with mounting medical bills and college tuition for their children.