“As far as I know, it’s in my liver and in my neck,” Santee said. “I haven’t asked the doctor because I’m afraid, but I understand it’s probably in my lymph nodes.”

As for Santee’s prognosis, Santee didn’t ask. She doesn’t want to know. She simply started chemotherapy Sept. 16, 2004, with her husband by her side and clung to hope.

Four days later, on Sept. 20, her husband died in a car crash near Vernon Center.

“Oh God ... I’ll never forget it,” Santee said.

Santee has since battled her illness alone. Both she and her husband moved to Mankato from the Mason City, Iowa, area, where their families lived, for his job as an electronic technician. She has lived in the area a short while and hasn’t made many friends.

She has endured several kinds of treatments, including chemotherapy that began with one treatment every 21 days, then one every 28 days and now one every week.

“All last year I was so sick on chemo,” she said. “At this point, with the new chemo, it’s not as bad. I’m tired, I have weak pains in my stomach, and I just get a lot of nausea.”

She lost her hair, but now it has grown back.

Bear has been her only companion through it all. But because of two growths on his body, he is scheduled for surgery next Tuesday. And Santee has be strong for him, too.

“If I lose him, too, I don’t know what I’ll do,” she said.

Time to move on

Santee decided in August when her doctor moved to Maine that it was time for her, too, to leave Mankato and return to the Mason City area to be with family. Santee believed her doctor was the one keeping her alive during the past year and now there’s no reason to stay here.

“I also want to be with Eric,” she said of her husband, who is buried in Iowa.

So Santee has been busy selling her belongings, including many of her dolls (except for a few she couldn’t part with) and her husband’s guns and “Simpsons” collection. Willa Dailey, Santee’s auctioneer, has been helping her. Dailey’s also the one who suggested donating the remainder of her Barbies (more than 70 of them, including the mermaid) to Toys for Tots.

“So much has been taken away from her to be able to still give,” said Dailey of Dailey Auction Service and Pro-Formance Realty. “These dolls mean so much to her, but she knows she can’t keep hundreds of dolls where she’s going.”