Support Holly and Mark's fight against cancer

Hi, my name is Tori. I'm fundraising on behalf of my stepdad, Mark, and my mom, Holly.

He and my mom grew up in the same town and went to school together, but weren't ever really friends. As Murrell and Myers in school, he was "the goofy kid always standing behind her." They graduated and went off to live their separate lives.

Mark became a trained chef, he used to cook at Disney. He went on to buy a restaurant of his own. Not too long into running The Village Grill, he hired Holly. It wasn't much later that they fell in love.

They had a beautiful wedding ceremony in the summer, and made their marriage official on Halloween, 2021. What was supposed to be a happy time in their lives, took a very bad turn only a couple months later.

Around that Christmas, Mark was diagnosed with cancer, at the base of his tongue. He underwent radiation and chemotherapy and had a feeding tube placed, as eating was impossible. He was unable to work for some time, and lost a lot of weight, but he seemed to be in the clear. He was recovering and putting weight back on, returned to working, though it was a long road getting there, and he never quite got back to 100%.

Two years later, he was experiencing pain, and several other issues that still hadn't resolved, he got tests done. Sitting at home with Holly, he mentioned to her, "Today makes two years since finishing my treatments." And then the phone rang. It was his doctor, with the worst news. Though very unlikely, the cancer was back.

Mark has a large tumor in his neck, it's tangled up in the nerves to his tongue, his vocal cords, his jugular, and his carotid artery. He's in a lot of pain, half his tongue is swollen and numb, making eating difficult. His weight is back down again. His vocal cord is paralyzed and he can only speak in a whisper, which isn't expected to ever improve. He's constantly coughing up mucus and he's weak and exhausted.

His doctors really don't want to attempt surgery, in such a risky location, they say a stroke would be likely. Radiation isn't generally allowed to be repeated in the same area, as it's unsafe for the healthy tissues. Mark was given keytruda treatments in hopes of shrinking the tumor, he showed no improvement and they did another scan. Rather than shrinking, the tumor grew 30% larger.

Now his doctors are preparing to insert a port and begin aggressive chemotherapy, and they went before "the tumor board" to get approval for highly focused radiation treatment directly to the tumor. They hope to shrink the tumor, or at the very least, keep it from growing larger.

With all this, Holly supports Mark the best she can, but she is dealing with her own health issues as well. She has cluster headaches, nerve damage, sciatica, and ortho arthritis, all of which cause pain, weakness in her hands, and trouble sitting or standing for long periods. Beyond this, a mass on her iliac bone and in her hip socket, for which she's been receiving ongoing testing, unexplained fibrosis of the liver that they're monitoring, and nodes on her thyroid that she'll be having biopsied. Needless to say, she's a bit of a mess.

In light of all this, they had no choice but to decide to shut down the restaurant. This will unfortunately be a great hardship for them. They'll be without income and have limited resources. With both their medical needs, bills, groceries, and gas to get back and forth to appointments, they're facing a very difficult time, on top of all that they're already dealing with.

Holly and Mark are good, hard working people, they don't deserve to be in this situation. They're in need and it's because of this that I am reaching out, with sincere hope, that we can all come together for them. They're both kind and caring and have always helped others where they could, please help them in turn. Absolutely anything is appreciated, and please, keep them in your prayers.