Ann Marie Struck, D.D.S., and Deacon Paul Jung
Share this:
Mayo Clinic saved the lives of two of the most important people to Ann Marie Struck: her mother and her husband.
In 2004, after a handful of emergency visits at a local hospital for a serious and locally untreatable heart condition, doctors there sent Ann Marie’s mother, Victoria, to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, a six-hour drive from their home in Morris, Illinois.
Mayo Clinic doctors determined Victoria, then 84, needed an aortic valve replacement. Although her surgery was life-threatening because of her age, it was successful, and she lived for 10 more years.
“What do you do when they save your mother’s life?” Ann Marie says. “I would have given Mayo everything I had for what they did for her.”
That’s when Ann Marie and her husband, Paul Jung, became annual benefactors to Mayo Clinic.
NAVIGATING A NEW CHALLENGE
Two years later, Paul, a high school choral music director, noticed a lump on the left side of his neck. Doctors at a local hospital suspected cancer. Paul and Ann Marie traveled to Mayo Clinic for a second opinion, and Paul was diagnosed with a rare stage 4 base of tongue cancer.
Each doctor visit brought more bad news, but Paul and Ann Marie were buoyed by the perseverance of the Mayo Clinic medical team. “They’re always trying to give you the honest truth,” Ann Marie says, “but they still try to give you hope.”
Paul underwent a complex 12-hour surgery at Mayo Clinic Hospital – Rochester, Saint Marys Campus to remove the cancer, which had spread to the opposite side of his neck — while Ann Marie and Victoria waited. “We were the first ones in that surgical waiting room,” Ann Marie says, “and we were the last ones to leave that night.”
After surgery with Jan Kasperbauer, M.D., and his team, Paul remained at Mayo Clinic for six weeks for a full treatment regimen of chemotherapy and radiation. He also agreed to participate in a clinical trial of a targeted therapy for patients with his type of cancer.
Though participating in such a trial presents little risk, some patients decline because they’re already overwhelmed by cancer treatment, says radiation oncologist Paul Brown, M.D., who treated Paul’s cancer and sees him for annual checkups.
We don’t want to be far from a Mayo facility. I know if I go to a Mayo facility, I’m going to be in good hands.
— Ann Marie Struck, D.D.S.
“He’s an altruistic person, so it’s not a surprise that he was willing to enroll in the study,” Dr. Brown says. “You’re doing it to help people in the future.”
At the end of his treatment, after weeks on a feeding tube, Paul couldn’t swallow well and his vocal cords had limited function. It was a devastating blow for a man whose livelihood was singing. “My heart sank,” Paul says. “I said to myself, ‘I’m in this for the long haul.’”
He worked with a speech pathologist and Mayo Clinic’s vocal music therapist to recover some function. Though his voice remains compromised and his swallowing is limited, Paul continued to teach for five more years before retiring in 2011.
Now, Paul is a deacon for the Roman Catholic Church. “If it wasn’t for Mayo,” he says, “I wouldn’t be able to speak and preach.” Paul also sings publicly once a year, performing a solo of the joyous Easter proclamation the “Exsultet” at his church.
RECOGNIZING IMPACT
Ann Marie and Paul, who own a small vacation property in Northern Illinois, consider Rochester their third home. Both see internal medicine doctors at Mayo Clinic, despite the distance.
The couple is so dedicated to Mayo Clinic, in fact, that they have limited their future retirement locale to the three cities where the health system operates: Rochester, Scottsdale or Jacksonville. “We don’t want to be far from a Mayo facility,” Ann Marie says. “I know if I go to a Mayo facility, I’m going to be in good hands.”
Ann Marie, a retired dentist, and Paul have been thrilled to see Mayo Clinic expand its cancer-fighting arsenal with proton beam therapy, a more precise radiation treatment with less toxicity and fewer side effects. At Mayo Clinic, a large percentage of patients with base of tongue cancer are now treated with proton beam therapy, Dr. Brown says.
“With these newer treatment protocols, patients have a better chance of a better functional outcome,” he says. “I’m so thankful for Paul’s support because Mayo Clinic is continuing to try to improve outcomes for patients with head-neck cancer just like him.”
Now Major Benefactors and members of The Mayo Legacy, Ann Marie and Paul say the three shields of Mayo Clinic — representing Clinical Practice, Education and Research — align with their experiences as patients, Paul’s longtime teaching career, and Ann Marie’s interest in medical research.
“We knew Mayo Clinic was the place for us,” Paul says. “Mayo Clinic has been there for us, and we want to be there for them.”