It was December 2018 when my family knew something was seriously wrong with my dad. An otherwise healthy 54-year-old man and avid tennis player was sitting in front of us, barely touching his dinner.

The holiday season came and went, but his struggle to keep food down did not. Only a few weeks later, I received that unimaginable phone call: my dad had been diagnosed with stage III esophageal cancer.

What led us to MD Anderson...