Masons' cancer battle is a labor of love

If not for an ex-boyfriend, Victoria Mason never would have met her husband, Wild goaltender coach Bob Mason.
In 1979, Victoria made the nine-hour trek north from her hometown of Austin to International Falls, where her then-boyfriend was living. She went to the local junior college and worked at a clothing store owned by Mason's father.
Her job allowed her first interaction with Bob, his twin brother, Billy, and their older sister Nancy, who became one of Victoria's best friends.

It took a few more years, but eventually Bob and Victoria would start dating.
Bob and Billy were sophomores at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Bob, the team's goaltender, and Billy, a forward, were preparing to play the University of North Dakota one January in 1983. Billy's girlfriend at the time was a cheerleader at UND, so Nancy invited Victoria -- by then, single and living in the Twin Cities -- up for the weekend.
"Tell Bob he's got a date," Victoria remembered telling Nancy.
So up Interstate 35 she went. Bob brought Victoria out after each of the two games, and they've been together ever since.
"I know it's cliche, saying it was love at first sight, but it really was," Victoria said. "Even though I had known him, it was a different turn on things. It wasn't really planned, but it came out really good."
Bob and Victoria dated for eight years before tying the knot in 1991. The couple never had children, but have spent the past 27 years together, focusing their attention on their poodles, Blue and Margo.
After more than two decades of adventure, the couple was dealt its most serious challenge in May of 2017, when Victoria was diagnosed with Stage 4 urothelial cancer.

"It turns your world upside down, there's no doubt," Bob said.
Concerns about Victoria's health began as far back as 2016. Doctors initially thought she had diverticulitis.
In March of 2017, Bob, on the road with the Wild in Chicago, went home as the team went on to Washington so he could be there as doctors investigated a spot on one of his wife's lungs. Initially, the nodule came back as benign.
But 10 weeks later, when blood showed up in her urine, it was obvious something more sinister had its grips on her. A scan of Victoria's kidney revealed the spot on her lungs was still there. Doctors then did a needle biopsy, and tests on the spot came back as malignant.
And because it was deemed that the cancer had started in her ureter and spread to her lungs, she was told her battle would be a fierce one.
"I couldn't do anything for two or three weeks. Couldn't talk about it. Just totally devastating," Bob said. "When it was going into oncology, going in for chemo treatment was scary as hell, going in there and looking at the seats and the bags and drips and all that. And when we first went in there, it was just like, 'Are you kidding me? We're doing this?' And now it's kind of a new normal for us. It's not a scary place anymore, it's kind of a nice place; we know a lot of people in there and we know the staff.
"It's more of a comforting spot now. But when you first walk in there, it's like looking at death."
Victoria underwent rigorous chemotherapy for 14 months, which shrank some of the spots in her body. In late August, she began treatments of an immunotherapy drug called Keytruda.
The first post-Keytruda scans came back last week, and while the spots hadn't shrunk further, they hadn't increased much in size, either.
The hope is that continued treatments will start moving the ball in the right direction in that regard.
"She's a trouper," Bob said. "A lot of those chemo days, you don't have energy. You're socked, you don't have energy to even get out of bed."

Having been with Bob for more than three decades, there isn't much that surprises Victoria about her husband anymore.
And while she says she's always known how caring he is, she has a new appreciation for her partner's willingness to do just about anything to make sure she's good.
Cancer has shown her just how much she loves her husband.
"I didn't realize just how much I'm in love with my husband until this happened. And that's really wonderful," Victoria said. "We still get snarky with each other. But I think one of the greatest things that's happened with this is being truly in love and for other people to know that I love them."
One of the Masons' guiding lights through the process has been Becky Nill, wife of Dallas Stars General Manager Jim Nill.
Bob and Jim have known each other for years, but it wasn't until a couple of years ago that Bob found out Becky was a cancer survivor.
Becky was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999 and beat it then, only to see it return with a vengeance in January of 2011. After manifesting itself in the form of a frozen shoulder, doctors confirmed the worst: it had returned, and metastasized in her liver and in her bones.
She was Stage 4, and likely had months to live.
For a full year, Becky underwent chemotherapy every day. And while the cancer still exists inside her body, she has managed to keep the worst of it at bay for seven years and counting.
That's what the Masons are hoping for Victoria, who has not yet met Becky, but will soon.

"Becky] texted me the other day asking about her, asking for her number. They're going to connect soon," Bob said. "[Becky] is in [Victoria's] same shoes; she's a hockey wife, she's had a Stage 4, she's on immunotherapy drugs, she's had her ups and downs.
"Even talking to another cancer patient, it can be important. Because they have it, they know what you're thinking, what goes through your mind. If you don't have it, do you really know? Maybe not."
In addition to Bob, Victoria has found comfort in the support of her siblings, who come to the Masons' house or host Victoria when Bob travels with the team for his job.
But her rock from the very beginning has been Bob, a love story that began by chance more than 30 years ago and continues today.
It's that love that fuels her fight on a daily basis.
"I don't want to leave," Victoria said, "because I'm so in love with him."
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