My name is Tony Fedora, husband & father of 2 and I am blessed to be a father in law as well.

In 2013, I was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL), which required 3 months of chemo along with 3 months out of work. It was a struggle nonetheless to keep food on the table and our feet on the ground.

For the past 25 years or so, I have also been fighting pre-cancer spots in my mouth that needed to be surgically removed several times. I believe I have had close to if not more than 20 surgeries to remove the spots. This has been a battle but one I could manage with constant checkups every 6 months to stay on top of the battle.

I recently had a spot develop, and my doctor and I took quick action to get it removed. During my wait for the procedure this spot, like others, became challenging and suddenly took a drastic turn. The spot had an aggressive development and started to mutate. After the procedure, the spot was sent off to pathology. The results came back and absolutely devastated me. It was an aggressive form of Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). Unfortunately my specialty doctor, Dr Rhodes, could not get it all because the cancer was attached to my jawbone.

I have been referred to Mayo Clinic, where I met a world-renowned oral cancer specialist, Dr. Daniel Price. He was extremely thorough in his exams and explanations regarding the diagnosis, location, and treatment process. After 2 days of tests and 4 different body scans, the only place that cancer had been found was in my lower jawbone. I was informed that I need to have a portion of my jaw removed and replaced with a piece of bone from my femur. My surgery is scheduled to be approximately 8 hours, with at least a 5-day stay in the hospital before I can go home to my family. If all goes well, I will be out of work for 3 months during recovery. In the worst-case scenario, I will need to go through radiation therapy which requires another 3 months for radiation recovery. Radiation therapy will require daily treatments (approximately 16+ total sessions), where I will be required to stay at a cancer recovery center. Following my treatment, I will be travelling from Duluth to Rochester, MN, every 3 months for follow-up checkups, more testing and scans for the next year then every 6 months for a couple of years.

I am a proud, hard working person and I have rarely asked for any kind of help. I am only 58 years old and have many years left in this body. I am so looking forward to the many years ahead going hunting, fishing and spending Sunday afternoons with my family. As we all do, there is so much more I would like to accomplish with the rest of my life, and I hope my life will not be cut short because of oral cancer.

One of my greatest joys in the last 7 years is that I have become a trap shooting coach for one of our local high school. Teaching the athletes how to shoot traps and watching them excel as they achieve their first 25 clays broken consecutively has been my greatest joy. This is probably going to be the hardest thing for me to be away from the spring season but hope to return for the fall season.

Like I mentioned before, I am a proud man, a hardworking man, a father, a husband and a future grandfather.

The last time I had to go through cancer, it placed a financial burden on my family and me. This time I really have had to swallow my pride, and I am asking for just a little help. After all my medical expenses are paid, I will be donating the rest of the money to a children’s cancer center.

Thank you so much for taking your time to read this and I am praying that you and your family are healthy.

CANCER TRULY SUCKS!

Tony Fedora