PERSONAL & PROFESSIONAL
Rachel Krueger of Onalaska graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Stout in June with a doctoral degree, just four years after undergoing treatment for brain cancer.
A TIME TO RE-EVALUATE PRIORITIES Rachel Krueger’s battle with brain cancer reaffirms focus on family and education. BY JOAN KENT | CONTRIBUTED PHOTOS
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achel Krueger remembers looking back at her husband, mom, dad and sister as she was moved into a surgery room at Mayo Clinic in Rochester on January 25, 2017. “Please God, let me see these faces again,” she said before entering the room where a surgeon drilled into her skull, removed a piece and the tumor beneath, and replaced the missing bone with a piece from a cadaver. As she’d been wheeled in, she’d joked, “I’m pretty smart now. Let’s keep it that way.” She also recalls how she cried when her dissertation to become a
Doctor of Education in Career and Technical Education Leadership was approved at the University of Wisconsin-Stout, on June 15, 2021, thinking, “How in the hell did I do it?” FROM NUMBNESS TO ANGER TO ACCEPTANCE In November 2016, the Onalaska resident had visited Mayo Clinic Health System in La Crosse, believing she had a sinus infection. An eventual MRI at Mayo-Rochester showed Krueger had a brain tumor. As she hadn’t experienced headaches or any other symptoms, doctors
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