Faith, Hope and a Marathon: The Ray Finegan Story

Ray and I met years ago. My husband and I were referred to Lynn and Ray when we decided to move and needed a real estate agent to list our house; they were our team. Ray and his wife Lynn and my husband Dave and I quickly turned into friends; who knew that our path in life would cross over in different ways.

Fast forward to November 2014, Ray and his wife were enjoying a vacation in Hawaii. Ray woke up and found blood on his pillow. Startled of course and not sure what the reasoning was, they sought out the best doctors they could find once arriving back to St. Louis. After a quick CT scan and biopsy, they realized that there was a mass on his tonsil. After further investigation, it was determined this mass was not benign; it was cancerous – “P-16” positive. They remembered hearing, “if you have cancer, this is the type to have.” Lynn recalls that moment vividly, she looked at Ray and said “No pity party here dear. I am by your side. We are a team.” Hearing those words “you have cancer” is awful. And that having any type of cancer is “the good kind to have”; they knew regardless, that together, they could beat this.

And from that moment on, Lynn was by Ray’s side… undergoing the treatment plans that included 10 arduous weeks of chemotherapy and 35 proton radiation treatments through Siteman Cancer Center. This was quite the daunting task to endure – as the treatments lasted for days, weeks and months well past the original diagnosis – occurring from late winter 2014 through spring of 2015, and through it all, Ray and Lynn persevered. Ray continued to work through all of this; he knew that he had to keep going and keeping life as normal as he could was what was best to get through this.