Marine Veteran Dies After Three-Year Brain Cancer Bout: ‘Doesn’t Seem Real’

Amber Dechert said her husband’s death “doesn’t seem real.”

Michael “Mike” David Dechert, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, died July 31 after a valiant three-year fight against brain cancer stemming from varicella encephalitis. He was 49.

Amber spoke with Military.com one day after cremating her deceased husband, saying that his battle against the disease exemplified who he was as a person, taking the lessons he learned from service and applying them to benefit his family and the broader community in their home state of Pennsylvania, near Hershey. He served from 1997 to 2001.

“A lot of people don’t think I’m grieving, but grief is different,” Amber told Military.com. “I’m happy, sad, mad. I’ve been grieving basically the whole time, he hasn’t been home in basically six months between hospitals and rehab facilities.”

“Just watching him take his last breath, that was very hard. It’s been a long, long journey. It was very hard to watch his personality change,” she added, speaking through tears.

Meeting and Starting a Life

When the couple originally met in 2003, Amber was 17 years of age and Mike was 27.

Amber, now 40, joked, “My dad didn’t really like that too much.”

Yet, they forged on and, as of this year, remained together for 23 years—including 18 years of wedded bliss as of this September. They have two kids together, Austin, 16, and Coltyn, 13, while Mike has two children from a previous marriage.

“He loved spending time with all his family, teaching his children everything he could,” she said. “He was always positive throughout his cancer diagnosis, and we made fun of it a lot. He lost function on his left side and we made fun of it because what else could we do?

“I don’t know how he did it, honestly, because I don’t know if I could be that way. He wanted to be the light and joy despite of everything.”

Cancer Diagnosis and Years-Long Battle

In September 2023, Mike began getting bad headaches.

Amber chalked it up to his being diabetic, though one day his blood sugar levels were in the hundreds. It led to them to the hospital where a CT scan was conducted and physicians “saw something they didn’t like.”

He was transferred to Penn State Hershey Medical Center and a neurosurgeon told Amber that he was “99.9% sure” that Mike had glioblastoma, a rapidly accelerating form of a cancerous tumor. He was prescribed steroids, sent home for a week, then had surgery on Oct. 2, 2023—the same day as his oldest son’s birthday.

He was fine for a while after that surgery, but the tumor grew back. He had another surgery in mid-October 2024.

By June 2025, the tumor had grown on the outside of his skull and caused what Amber described as personality challenges.

In March 2026, Mike began experiencing hallucinations and his tumor “physically burst open” while at the hospital. As another surgery awaited, Mike experienced a seizure.

“He never really recovered from that, he just went downhill,” Amber said. “He had shingles in the hospital, a fungal infection. Basically, in May is when he started going into a comatose state.”

She made the decision on July 31 to take him off the ventilator. He died roughly 10 minutes later.

Dealing With the Aftermath

Mike’s death remains fresh but navigating life without him in the long run is a daunting task.

Amber said that one unlikely friend made throughout the past few years is Mike’s ex-wife, who along with her new spouse visited Mike at the hospital and offered assistance to Amber and the kids when needed.

“It was an intimate moment,” Amber recalled. “It’s been hard for all of us. My 16-year-old doesn’t know how to handle it, he won’t talk to me about it.”

She hears from Austin’s friends that her son wishes he had one more day with his dad. While Austin disliked seeing his father in that manner at the hospital, Coltyn was a regular there for months, accompanying his mother.

Other things happened during the cancer bout. One was that Mike worked at Dollar General as a manager for about a year, working to spruce up a local store while battling a disease that eventually killed him.

Mike and Amber also renewed their vows. In March 2024, through a service called Wish Upon a Wedding that helps those with terminal illnesses, the couple was able to get a wedding plan and have everything financially covered. Mike’s ex-wife was Amber’s matron of honor.

“It was really nice,” Amber said.

But the mix of emotions lingered. Amber said that about one week prior to Mike receiving his cancer diagnosis, she found out she had a miscarriage.

“I didn’t even get to grieve that miscarriage,” she said.

Now, she has time to grieve, think and remember. What’s left are memories of a man ​she views as “a true hero.”