Hi everyone, my name is Dana Gleason and I'm from small-town Iowa. I was born and raised in Iowa, and at the age of 17, I joined the US ARMY. I was able to be part of the fall of the wall in Germany, and I am a combat veteran from the Desert Storm war. I served from 1989-1993.

I got out of the army and had the opportunity to work for a few great companies in my area like Omega Cabinets and Ferguson Plumbing. I now work for a great company, Conagra Foods.

I started at Conagra in April of 2025, and two months later, I went to a friend's cabin to help replace a water heater. On the way home, we stopped to eat, and I went to take a bite of my sandwich. A sharp pain shot from the right side of my tongue, and it was hard to eat. At first, it felt like a canker sore, so I got some over-the-counter medication to help. I read that if it didn’t go away in a couple of weeks, I should seek out my doctor. Two weeks went by, and it still hurt and was actually getting worse, so I went to my normal doctor. She set me up with an appointment with a specialist to get a biopsy done.

Two more weeks went by, and I went to my appointment. They took a biopsy and sent it in. Two days later, they called me and told me I had tongue cancer. They made me an appointment with a specialist for a neck and throat cancer doctor in Iowa City.

The appointment was a couple of weeks later. I showed up, and the doctor went over all my options. We did all the tests to determine where the cancer was located. Luckily, it was all in my tongue and had not traveled anywhere else in my body. We decided to cut the infected area of my tongue out, 40% of it, and take skin off my forearm to reconstruct my tongue. I had surgery on the 7th of November. It was a 12-hour surgery, and it went well, but there was definitely a lot of pain involved.

Now, I have only been with my company for 6 months. Yes, I signed up for short-term and long-term disability, but since I had not been with the company for a year, I only got 6 weeks of short-term disability. With all the bills from not only the hospital but also the home bills, I am starting to worry about how I am going to make it. I am reaching out to all of you in hopes I can get some help. I have 6 weeks of radiation treatment coming up in the next few weeks and just looking for some help financially to get me through all this and get back to work. I want to thank any of you that donate, and I honestly can’t thank you enough for listening to my story and helping.