The Road Home

Early one morning, Debbie Wilson is taking a shower to wake herself up. Thirty-one years old, her days are full of the joys and obstacles familiar to so many navigating the American Dream. While sorting out the challenges of the busy day in her head, her soapy fingers discover a marble-sized tumor on her left breast that changes her world forever.

Deep into her final college semester as an intern, training to be a middle school teacher, she is a devoted mother to two young boys. Her husband, Chuck, recently left the security of his career as a naval officer, and is in the desperate throes of a job search during the economic crisis of 1987. The life Chuck and Debbie Wilson have worked so hard to build for themselves is turned upside down as cancer takes the wheel.

From that moment in the shower, Debbie and her family are thrust onto an unexpected journey. For the next twenty-eight years, Debbie resolutely battles one type of cancer after another—including one of the rarest forms of cancer in the world. While they never set out to become the epitome of “in sickness and in health” as doctor after doctor tells Debbie she is out of options, love and faith find a way. As her incredible story spreads by word of mouth, she becomes an inspiration to countless people facing their own battles with cancer.

Decades after this miracle love story began, their incredible journey is finally in print. Gripping, humorous, heartbreaking and inspiring, this memoir of faith and family tells the true story of how hardship can strengthen—not destroy—a family.