A Bittersweet Slice of Life: Juliette & David’s Cancer Journey

En Media Res: “In the middle of things.”

Let me start by saying: for anyone who is battling cancer—or for anyone who loves or has loved someone battling cancer—this is for you.

Secondly, as you may have noticed, this blog has taken a new direction. Because sometimes what inspires you to write in life isn’t always the good, the beautiful, the fun, the happy…sometimes it’s the heartbreak, the tragedy, the fear. And most of the time, it’s all that wrapped all into one.

In late 2024, my fiancé David Brackett was diagnosed with locally advanced head and neck cancer. At that time, his oncologist assured us (and these words still haunt my memory to this day) that “there’s no reason David wouldn’t live to be 90.”

And so, we began our battle. We suffered in silence, gritted our teeth through the treatment, endured excruciating radiation, and kept the journey mostly to ourselves as what would soon become a nightmare unfolded.  

In 2025, he completed 35 rounds of radiation along with 3 infusions of cisplatin chemotherapy to complement the localized treatment. By March, he was hanging on by a thread—but he beat it.

“Congratulations, buddy,” his radiation oncologist told us by the time his July follow-up PET rolled around. “You have another fifty years to live!” The PET scan showed the neck tumor had entirely responded to the treatment…BUT there was a “small speck” on his lungs and an alarming area on his armpit that was recommended for immediate biopsy.

Immediate…ha. How little did we know—and much we would learn…

Becoming the Perfect Responder

Fast-forward to October 2025: a completely mishandled, delayed biopsy confirmed the cancer had returned. And this time, it came back with a vengeance.

The diagnosis had progressed to stage IV and metastatic—a now “advanced” disease with a much bleaker prognosis.

With a new oncology team on our side and an immediate initiation of an aggressive regimen, we may have gotten him into the right hands at the right time.

IF he responds strongly, IF he is the “perfect responder,” he could possibly live for years, even decades—but the grim reality is that it’s still unknown. What we do know is that if the disease had continued to advance any further, we would have been looking at hospice soon.

Right now, we are at the fork in the road where we really won’t know the outcome until he begins to respond. Only time will tell.

Climbing the Mountain

During this most recent round of hospitalization, he said to me: “You should write our love story.”

And that is exactly what I will do. I need to write this story while we still have time together on this earth.

“I will climb the mountain,” he promised me. “And at the top of the mountain is you in a wedding dress and Romeo beside us.”

I have to believe that he will climb the mountain. We WILL meet at the top. He WILL become the perfect responder, and our cancer journey will become a metastatic miracle.

For anyone who’s ever needed to believe in a miracle, this is the story of David and Juliette (and Romeo, of course).

Keep up with our Cancer Journey

For our friends and loved ones—subscribe to keep up with our latest blog posts and updates. TPF chemo has been initiated…more on that soon!

Stay tuned for Blog #2, a detailed story of our latest stage IV diagnosis-: Knocking on Death’s Door: One Hospitalization After Another.

If you want to follow David’s cancer journey, you can check out his Instagram here.