Washington Post

20 years ago, a reprieve for my husband while nation reeled

We were late for my husband's 9 a.m. appointment at the cancer center at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and he had reason to feel nervous. For Marco, this bright mid-September morning in 2001 was the big day, his first checkup after nine months of a brutal regimen for esophageal cancer. We drove to Baltimore in silence, too agitated to listen to NPR. News was the last thing on my mind. The looming question: Had the protocol worked? Radiation, chemotherapy and two abdominal surgeries offered no guarante