Spend a few minutes with Shigeko Nagaishi and Michael Steuber and
you will quickly learn about their passions. Shigeko chats about favorite
recipes and her adventures in cooking while Michael tells fascinating
stories about his life as a professional dancer. But a year ago, the
husband and wife almost lost their ability to do what they loved.
In 2016, Shigeko was feeling strange
but because she had been healthy her
whole life prior, she thought nothing
of it. During a visit to her family doctor
in August 2017, additional tests were
ordered at Straub Medical Center.
She was diagnosed with stage 3
colon cancer.
It was difficult for the couple to hear
but Shigeko felt sure she would be all
right, thanks to Dr. Gregorio Maldini.
of the chemo got increasingly worse and
I even lost my sense of taste,” she said.
It was a horrible realization for the home
cook. “But my oncologist, Dr. Randal
Liu, and the staff at the OTC were so
positive. They just kept encouraging me
saying that I was an excellent chemo
patient and I began to think, ‘Maybe
I am!’”
“We felt that everything the Straub staff
was doing was sincere,” said Michael.
“They wanted the best for her. That is no
small thing to us.”
Dr. Maldini, a Straub general surgeon,
approached her care in a very different
Michael’s tap dancing shoes
way than she had experienced when
THROUGH IT ALL, HER HUSBAND,
her mother was diagnosed with cancer in her native
MICHAEL, WAS BY HER SIDE. However, he was facing a
country of Japan. The change was a welcome one.
painful challenge of his own. The couple lived in Japan for
“In Japan, the doctors would tell you very solemnly, ‘I’m
12 years, then moved to Hawai‘i to try and curb Michael’s
sorry you have cancer,’” she said. “But Dr. Maldini was
increasingly debilitating arthritis in his hips. They hoped the
very calm, straightforward and confident. He looked at
warmer weather would help alleviate the pain, and while it
the results and he told me he could operate tomorrow.”
decreased the discomfort, it did not stop the progression.
Shortly after Shigeko removed her chemo port, Michael
Shigeko’s surgery to remove the cancerous section of her
made an appointment with Dr. Cass Nakasone, a Straub
colon went well. But it was just the beginning of her battle.
orthopedic surgeon.
Next was six months of chemotherapy at the Straub Outpa-
tient Treatment Center (OTC). “The nausea and side effects
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 12)
INSPIRE
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