Darcie Strong

06/16/2026

Since Darcie’s break out from prison…I mean Rehab…last Monday (Oh my gosh, how has it been a WEEK already?!), so much has happened. Having her home has been so wonderful. As per usual - this post is going to be full of TMI. But it wouldn’t be Darcie Strong if we left out the icky, gory details.

The first few nights at home consisted of rearranging the house to accommodate her wheelchair. This was basically like playing Tetris because we live in a teeny tiny 120 year old home, but we succeeded! She is now as able to navigate our home as possible.

Then came an appointment to the radiation oncologist. Here we were told that she is essentially a trial case because there has never been one like hers. They said that her specific diagnosis states that she has lung cancer on the skin of her foot. So weird - as per Darcie’s new usual. A few studies have shown that the lung NUT Carcinoma is reactive to radiation, chemo, and immunotherapy. The doctor said that she has actually treated a case that was similar and would like to start radiation and chemo ASAP because Darcie’s cancer has proven to be super aggressive - which we saw first hand. Unfortunately, we have to continue to wait for Darc to heal more because radiation can reopen wounds, and that is the last thing that they want for her flap. Radiation will be done on her foot, the lymph nodes behind her knee, and all the hot spots in her groin and pelvis. The radiation can cause some nausea, but most of the side effects should be localized. She could lose hair in these areas. She is pretty bummed about not having to shave those areas. Haha.

The doctor informed us that they were speaking with the medical oncologist (the doctor who does chemotherapy) and it was decided that chemo and radiation have been shown to work best for NUT Carcinoma when they run together. So far, we know for sure that radiation will run 5 days a week for 7 weeks. We aren’t sure what chemo or immunotherapy will look like so far, but we do know that immunotherapy will take place after the other two have concluded.

Last week was graduation for Sunrise High School!! Congratulations class of 2026! Darcie was able to go see her students walk the stage and give so many hugs and hand shakes. It was so beautiful for her to be able to see so many smiling faces! She is so proud of each and every one of them! Seeing her coworkers was exactly like a good friendship - picking up right where they left off. It was so wonderful for her to be wrapped in so much love! She mentioned to me that she felt human for the first time in weeks because she was able to put on a nice outfit and see some of her people. Unfortunately, getting out of the house was quite exhausting. Friday was spent resting and recuperating.

The morning of graduation, Darcie got up to go to the restroom and realized she had a wet spot on her pants near her lymph node incision. It feels like we have been here before! Luckily, we did not have to rush her to the ER this time. We took pictures and sent them to her dermatology oncologist and he had her come in to Huntsman. So, we hopped in the car and drove to Salt Lake City last minute for an appointment. When we were there, he cleared out her wound. It was pretty full of necrotic tissue and was definately in need of a clear out. Luckily, the doctor did not find any tunneling. Tunneling could mean trouble, but we dodged a bullet this time! This wound would now need a wound vac in order to heal properly and much quicker. We laughed because we had the wound vac in a return envelope ready to ship back. The next day, Darc received a call from her case manager and they literally told her that they have never had orders to switch a wound vac from one location of the body to another before it had been sent back to the manufacturer….shocker, right?! The one thing we have come to count on hearing is, “We have never seen/heard/done this before!” Good news though, it was approved by insurance to switch the location and home health was called in. It was difficult to get a good seal on wound because it was incredibly close to her private area. Thankfully, Darcie’s home health nurse is a bad ass and can do anything!

This week is FULL of appointments. Today she had home health, occupational therapy, physical therapy, and a lovely coworker stop by to bring a meal. Tomorrow, she has her medical oncologist followed by labs. Wednesday, she has an appointment with her dermatologist oncologist and a nurse’s appointment. We aren’t entirely sure what this means, but we are assuming it is a wound vac change. Thursday is catch up day where I will be catching up on laundry and house work because it is an appointment free day! I’m sure I will have Darc scrubbing baseboards as well! 😉 Friday, we are back down at Huntsman for an appointment with plastics and a check on her wrist and foot splints.

I have been doing some of her wound care lately. Everything is looking so good. Things are healing and have mostly stopped bleeding. I am so hopeful moving forward that she should be healed soon and able to start the next steps in this journey. Right now, things feel very positive and like they are moving in the right direction! What a breath of fresh air!!

Funny story, we were in the car on the way to our nephew and niece’s birthday party on Sunday. My GPS is set to notify me of drive times to my common locations. It now only alerts me to go to Huntsman and Home. Wild how predictable a person can become in such circumstances!

As always, we are so thankful for our village! Every text, call, visit, donation, comment, and reaction have been super uplifting. We are constantly in awe of the size and love of our village! We love and see every single one of you! ❤

06/11/2026

Join Darcie’s village in supporting her fight against cancer.

First off - F**K Cancer. My name is Jessica and I’d like to introduce yo… Denise Whitney needs your support for Support Darcie Dyer’s Fight Against Cancer

06/10/2026

Birthday Update!

I AM HOME! 🎉🥳

So Sunday afternoon, I was discharged from the hospital (finally! after 10 days). And I was transported in a sketchy white van btw, to an inpatient rehab facility where I was told would be my temp home for weeks to a month to continue my healing with PT and OT. After arriving at the facility, I was overwhelmed with the love from my Super Sunrise Supporters by way of 1000 cranes for healing! (Sunrise High School). Also happy little surprise of a past student as my aide!

The next morning was my first 🚩 when their onsite PT came to and was extremely confused about my orders. She literally said “I don’t know why you’re here.” But we made a plan anyway and went about my day. Later, I had a follow up with OT to redress my nasty mess of wounds in Salt Lake. After arriving, my OT referred to my traveling all the way down from Tremonton (again by way of stretcher in the back of a van - not white this time). “No, I’m in a rehab place in Brigham.” Confusion… “What? Why are you there?” 🚩🚩. “I’m a good kid and that’s where they sent me.” She left to contact my Plastic Surgeon and both confirmed that their notes say that I’m supposed to be home. What.

So with a goodie bag full of medical supplies (I really have an arsenal of medical paraphernalia at this rate), I returned to the facility and immediately asked to speak with the director. An hour later, the charge nurse came in and tried to listen to my concerns and said she’d refer me to the social worker. Two hours later, the social worker came in:

SW: So sounds like you want to go home. We have a team meeting on Wednesday and we will go over your case and decide the best course of action and then if they decide to discharge you, it’ll take a few days after that.

Me: No, you don’t understand. I’m not supposed to be here. Call my doctors. They both say I’m supposed to be home. I will be discharged today.

SW: You really want to open that can of worms? (🚩🚩🚩)

Me: Yes. I am not paying to stay another night.

SW: You’re not paying for this. Don’t you have insurance?

Me: Yes. And who do you think pays my insurance plus the extra costs on top of that?

SW: Well, we’re not releasing your meds. Or telling you about your appointments. (🚩🚩🚩🚩)

Me: I will call my doctors and get my meds. And they’ve been calling me to schedule my appointments and I’ve been telling you guys when they are.

SW: Well that’s not how that’s supposed to work. (🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩)

Me: Exactly! I’m not supposed to be here! Also, you guys were supposed to prescribe me a wheelchair.

SW: Yeah we didn’t do that.

Me: Ok, give me something to sign. I refuse care. I will call my wife and I will be discharged now.

SW: So, you’re just going to sign yourself out?

Me: Yes.

Immediately, she storms out of the room. I frantically call my literal life saver, Jess, “Come get me now! They are holding me hostage!” Fortunately, while I anxiously awaited her arrival, my amazing Sunrise principal walked in and allowed me to trauma dump on him and helped advocate for my release. Almost immediately after he left, I received another divine intervention by way of text and was rescued by my #1 Sunrise Supporter, Kim McNeely who was mortified at the situation and comforted me as I was clearly in a distressful, balling mess. She quickly packed my stuff and waited for my stunningly strong and protective wife to whisk me away from my captors. After we had to get someone to unlock the (supposedly) 24 access front door while alarms announced our break, I was finally home free!

Arriving home, I was immediately greeted by some super cute extremely happy twin boys, my worried parents, and my Big little brother. (Devin Dyer and DeanandCindy Dyer). As well as a hoppin’ construction zone where some strapping men were building me a ramp for a wheelchair I had yet to receive.

Fast forward to the next morning, Tues, my birthday. I had a consult appointment with my Radiation Oncologist. Also, was able to reach out to my Plastic Team and they got my meds filled, started working on getting me a wheelchair, and will be sending home health orders for home wound care. Couldn’t ask for a better present!

06/08/2026

Darcie’s super sweet students and coworkers made all of these paper cranes. They had them hanging in her room when she came to the rehabilitation center. It is really meaningful and beautiful! 🥰 Just a testament to how she is well loved at Sunrise!

06/07/2026

Our girl is breaking out of the hospital!!

Due to a few drops in her hemoglobin levels over the past few days, Darcie has had to remain in the hospital. She has had a couple more blood transfusions. Thankfully, these have helped!

Today, her team has agreed that she is stable enough to be transferred to the inpatient rehabilitation center. She is beyond excited! We, as an entire village, are beyond excited! Cheers to change of scenery and the next step in her journey! 🥂🎉

06/05/2026

The kids got to visit Darcie at the hospital today! 🥰🎉

They were fascinated with all her new battle wounds.

06/05/2026

(Somewhat) Daily Dose of Darcie:

The last few days have been quite intense. From 48 hours of leech therapy (see previous post) to blood transfusions, Darcie has been getting all the experiences at Huntsman. As an educator, she has loved that her experiences have been able to educate the staff - often times having a whole crowd of people in her room at a time.

Leech therapy was incredible. Did you know that their saliva has an anticoagulant property that allows wounds to “bleed out” and often speeds up the healing process? Yeah, us either, but we sure do now! It is so wild to think, but old medicine for the win. The picture with the little Y formations on her flap is the way that the leech attaches. For some reason, we were convinced that they would leave little O patterns. These little suckers (haha…pun intended) quite literally saved her flap. They were able to release the growing pressure and allow the flap to lay much flatter, giving it a better chance at returning the blood flow back out of the flap.

The unfortunate part of the therapy, is that it causes the hemoglobin levels to become dangerously low - typically resulting in blood transfusions. Darcie received two units of some unknown hero’s donated blood and it really turned things around for her. I wish I had a picture of how pale she was prior to the transfusion. She made me look like a bronze goddess. In all seriousness though, witnessing her blood levels being completely out of wack was scary. Watching her lips turn white as she simply sat in a chair for a second is something that I hope I don’t have to experience again. Her emotions were thrown completely out of wack. She began to have panic attacks and that is so out of character for our super cool cucumber. The effects of the transfusion was almost immediately evident. She was back to joking, sitting up more in the bed, eating more. (Side note: if you can donate blood, please do! What a freaking blessing!!)

During this time, plastics came and removed her wound vac on her wrist. They said that the graft on her wrist looks great and should heal in time. Darcie said that it looks like the surgeon signed her arm by her elbow crease. The space on her wrist that the flap came from was grafted from her right thigh - which we are told is called her donor site. This donor site was covered by a gauze pad for days, and when it was finally taken off, exposed a gnarly blood clot. The nurse in the ICU was pretty uncomfortable just leaving this, but plastics looked at it and though they confirmed that it was slightly more thick than normal, if left to air would become like a scab and eventually start to come off when she takes showers. Totally a trust the process moment. We all had a good laugh though, because she is definitely not showering for the foreseeable future - sponge baths only. Turns out that an alternative to getting the mass to release is A&D ointment. Pretty cool and very gross.

Yesterday, after all the transfusions and forward progress, she was able to move back to the other floor - the not ICU one. Here she would only be checked on every 4 hours. The extra hours of sleep felt glorious for sure. The amount of progress that she has made in the past 24 hours is incredible. She has been cleared to “dangle” her foot for 5 minutes at a time, a few times a day. The flap has remained strong and has shown no sign of failure. She has been able to use the actual in room restroom for the first time since she entered the hospital and with minimal transition assistance! I gotta tell you that this literally is an unmistakable freedom I didn’t realize that I was taking for granted. She has been making such incredible progress that she was even told today that they will (HOPEFULLY) release her tomorrow or Saturday….to an inpatient rehabilitation facility.

We are thankful that they will be sending her to a facility so that she can learn to walk, write, type, and get some of her daily functions back. She currently is not able to do more than grip a toothbrush and is unable to do any weight bearing on her right foot. Unfortunately, I will be home without my person for much longer than expected, but I am so glad that she will gain strength and mobility and will be able to navigate our tiny house much easier once she has graduated past a wheelchair. We live in a 125 year old house, and it isn’t exactly built with a wheelchair bound person in mind.

So, friends, that is most of the gory, juicy details that we have at this point. Darcie is such an incredible human. She is constantly one of the staff’s favorite patients. She has been told many times that her optimism and positive nature is a highlight of the hospital staff’s day. We all know this already, but she is such a ray of sunshine in a time when she has every reason to be a cloud of gloom. She really is the definition of .

And for a shameless plug… if you are feeling so inclined to donate, share, or just read an abridged version of the original post..please head on over to the gofundme at: https://gofund.me/3779d02ae

We truly are so blessed and thankful for every single one of you! Our village is the very BEST and we could not do this journey without every single one of you. Thank you for loving us and following along.

06/03/2026

06/02/2026

Update of Darcie’s medical adventures - Yesterday (Day 5 in the hospital), I was moved back to the ICU after noticing alarming signs of ankle flap failure. My radial artery (previously on my wrist) was doing a good job of pumping blood to my ankle but was struggling pumping it away. It had became extremely swollen, discolored, and started pulling away from the site. These were mainly caused by my developing lymphedema and anemia. So they started me on leech therapy.

“Does ‘leech’ stand for something?” - No. Actual, real, living, wiggling LEECHES! Super gross. So for the next 20 hours, I was hosting a feeding frenzy to leeches that were placed on my flap and let “have at it!” The amount of blood these suckers took away was incredible to watch! And even though I may have screamed like a little girl when one leech decided to sneakily venture down my leg towards my thigh, they were pretty successful! And kept me from going back into the OR. But still increasing my hospital stay.

I have also been working with physical and occupational therapy to learn how to transition from the bed to a chair using only my left appendages to prepare me for wheelchair use at home. Being bedridden has not been fun to say the least.

I do want to say that the love and support has been amazing throughout this journey. Not only towards myself but also towards my stunningly beautiful future wife and kids. Between financial contributions, meals and food deliveries, a growing arsenal of hospital equipment, and visits at the hospital, my village has really stepped up and it has just been the HUGEST blessing during this time. And I seriously cannot thank everyone enough. It has really been incredible and inspiring and has had me crying lots of tears of gratitude, disbelief, and overwhelmingly shock of the sacrifices that people have made to help in any way that they can. I will never be able to express the full amount of my gratitude, love, and appreciation for the selfless acts that we have been blessed with during these scary times.

05/31/2026

Darcie had her skin flap and graft done Thursday. They took her skin and artery off her wrist and moved it into her foot along with a tattoo! Then they took skin off her thigh to move to her wrist. She will no longer have a radial pulse in her wrist. Surgery went well and she’s in the ICU where they check the pulse in her foot hourly. They are working on helping her move more independently which is difficult since her whole right side is out of commission and all wrapped up.

We are hoping she’ll be discharged Tuesday. She’ll have a couple weeks to recover before starting radiation and then chemo.

The oncologist believes they removed all the cancer at this point but they just want to make sure, so killing any residue with the radiation/chemo. She’ll then have scans every 3 months to check for cancer.