Hours after the Grundhausers’ beloved family dog died, they got devastating news — longtime St. Paul police officer Don Grundhauser was diagnosed with cancer.
They soon learned the 54-year-old’s cancer was stage 4 and, with a whirlwind of chemotherapy and other treatments in the months that followed, getting another dog wasn’t on the mind of his wife, Kelly Grundhauser.
But when she saw a puppy named Hope on social media, she told Don Grundhauser about the dog.
He responded: “Meant to be.” They adopted Hope and the small dog has been a bright spot in their lives.
As the last couple of years have been filled with grief — both of Kelly’s parents died and Don had to retire from the police department early due to his diagnosis — the Grundhausers have clung to hope, faith and the kindness of people they know along with strangers.
“When you have cancer, it’s like a bully on your back,” Don Grundhauser said this week. “I hated bullies growing up, I hated when people got picked on — maybe that’s why I became a cop. With this cancer, you can’t get the bully off, it won’t face you.”
But he started a new clinical trial this week and that’s giving him and Kelly renewed hope after previous treatments haven’t worked.
People have been rallying around the Grundhausers to support them and a fundraiser is being held for Don on Saturday. He and Kelly, who was previously a trauma nurse at Regions Hospital, are used to being the ones to help others, so it’s difficult for them to be on the receiving end of so much goodwill.
“Through all of this, we have learned to be vulnerable in ways we never imagined,” Kelly Grundhauser wrote this week. “We have fought it unintentionally. … We initially declined help many times — we simply didn’t know how to accept it. But as more doors closed, Donny realized it was time to say yes.”
St. Paul kid who started a family legacy
Don Grundhauser grew up on Winter Street behind the state Capitol, and attended St. Bernard’s School.
“If you know Don, you likely also know him as Donny or Grundy,” family friend Holly Macke wrote on a GoFundMe she started for his medical expenses and to help keep them afloat because Kelly cut back her hours as a professional photographer to take care of her husband. “He’s often referred to as a ‘Rice Street Legend.’”
Grundhauser became a St. Paul police officer in 1994, and started a family legacy — his two younger brothers, Mark and Keith, followed in his footsteps and one of his sons, now 25, also joined the department. The three are still St. Paul officers.
Don and Kelly Grundhauser married in 1996 at St. Bernard’s Church.
In August 2023, Kelly’s mother, Kathy Kuder, was diagnosed with cancer. She began treatment in September 2023. Three weeks later, Kelly’s father, 72-year-old Al Kuder, died suddenly. A week-and-a-half after they buried him, Kathy Kuder died of the cancer.
Kelly and Don Grundhauser spent months fixing up her parents’ house so they could sell it. With money from the sale, they took a family trip they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to afford with their twin sons to Hawaii last June. It was where Kelly’s parents had met, which led to their 52-year marriage.
The trip was supposed to be “a reset from all the sadness” and a chance to “build some new memories,” Kelly Grundhauser said. But she and her sons, Jacob and Nicholas, noticed that Don “wasn’t acting right,” she said. He usually loves food, though he wasn’t eating much on the trip. He seemed more tired than usual. Still, they celebrated his 54th birthday in Hawaii.
Diagnosis: ‘There’s no way’
When they got home in early July, Kelly told Don he needed to go to the doctor — she thought he might have an ulcer — but he told her he was fine. Grundhauser was a sergeant in the St. Paul Police Department’s Special Operations Unit. They plan for policing at large-scale events, such as the Twin Cities Marathon or the Minnesota Yacht Club Festival.
“I told Donny, ‘Once you start working again, you’re going to be working all the time, and I know that you won’t go in,’” Kelly Grundhauser said.
Back home, they learned their dog had been having trouble breathing, went to the veterinarian and had to make the difficult decision to put her to sleep due to congestive heart failure. Soon after, they were heading their separate ways to work.
Don Grundhauser was waiting at a red light — “he told me it felt like the light lasted for four hours and something just made him call” an urgent care center, Kelly Grundhauser said. He went there immediately and, after blood work and an imaging scan, a doctor told him he had cancer. He called his wife to break the news.
“I said, ‘I just lost my mom, my dad, my dog, there’s no way,’” she recounted.
She rushed to make appointments for tests and scans, which confirmed that Don Grundhauser had colorectal cancer and it had already spread to his lungs and liver.
He’d had a colonoscopy about 2½ years earlier, and it hadn’t detected cancer. Doctors have since looked back and saw a spot on the scan where Don Grundhauser’s cancer is, but it only appeared to be an irritant at the time and didn’t set off alarm bells.
If there’s a silver lining, it’s this: “We have been told that Donny’s diagnosis has saved more people than he knows,” Kelly Grundhauser said. “People have reached out to him and said, ‘I wouldn’t have ever gotten a colonoscopy if it wasn’t for you and they found early cancer in me.’”
Doctors don’t know what caused Grundhauser’s cancer. He doesn’t have a family history of it.
A study found a slightly higher rate of cancer in police officers in Nordic countries, compared to the general population. Two recent St. Paul officers have died of cancer since January — Shawn Filiowich, 52, and John Adamek, 60.
While Don Grundhauser loved being a police officer and misses it and the people, his wife worried about the effects on his health — stress, not eating well when he was constantly on the go, and energy drinks he consumed to keep him awake during long, late hours.
He also went with a contingent of St. Paul officers to help in New Orleans for six weeks after Hurricane Katrina, and doesn’t know if he was exposed to anything in the aftermath of the disaster that could have put him at risk for cancer.
‘Have to have hope’
After his diagnosis, Grundhauser immediately started treatment, but his body didn’t respond well to various kinds of chemotherapy or initial immunotherapy. Kelly wanted to donate part of her liver to him, which doctors ruled out.
He’s lost a significant amount of weight. More recently, he’s been experiencing some pain. He’s sleeping a lot and is weaker.
The family’s new dog, Hope, snuggles up with Grundhauser during his naps. She’s a Yorkshire terrier and miniature Schnauzer mix, which takes him back to being a boy because his childhood dog was a Schnauzer.
In the clinical trial he started this week, he’s receiving a different type of immunotherapy infusions.
“You have to have hope and you want to believe. I don’t feel like this is it,” said Don Grundhauser. He and his wife lean strongly on their faith.
But if he does run out of options with traditional medicine, Kelly has been researching holistic treatments for cancer and she said she’ll take Don anywhere in the U.S. or world to receive them, if he wants to.
“There are a lot of options out there that we would like to try before we just say, ‘It was good knowing you, honey,’” she said, choking up. “I don’t want him to go and he’s not ready to go, so of course, when you get to this point, you want to try everything.”
People offered to host a benefit for Grundhauser last September, but he said, “No, thank you.”
“He refused and he refused and he refused until he found out that this wasn’t working, and he realized we might have to go and try something different,” Kelly Grundhauser said.
The fundraising that’s underway and upcoming will help pay health insurance deductibles, co-payments and any future treatments not covered by insurance.
The Grundhausers’ sons work in Don’s old stomping grounds. Jacob is a staff member at the Minnesota House of Representatives, near where his father grew up. Nicholas has his father’s badge number and patrols in the area where Don once did, which includes the North End.
When he’s out and about on patrol, people stop Nicholas and tell him, “I know your dad!” and they want to tell stories about him.
“I have to try to live up to his legacy,” Nicholas Grundhauser said.
Linda Schwartzbauer, owner of Corporate Mark Inc. in St. Paul, worked with Don Grundhauser to design a shirt with the saying that he always had for other officers — “It doesn’t cost anything to be nice to someone.” All proceeds are going to his medical expenses.
Grundhauser said he’s been surprised to receive messages from people he knew from his policework, who write things like, “I don’t know if you remember me, but you helped me out with my daughter.”
He does remember and those messages answer a key question for him: “You go through life, wondering, ‘Did I make a difference?’”
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To help Don Grundhauser
More than 100 items and experiences, such as golf outings and Minnesota Twins tickets, have been donated for a silent auction, which is being held online until 5 p.m. Saturday and in person at the fundraiser. It can found at bit.ly/4hYycIi.
The Saturday fundraiser for Don Grundhauser is open to the public. It’s from 1 to 6 p.m. at the Earl and Wilson Event Center, 246 E. Seventh St., St. Paul. Entry is $20; $30 is for entry and a burger meal.
The Emerald Society of Minnesota is collecting monetary donations for Grundhauser at bit.ly/4h2dhm2 through 5 p.m. on Saturday. The GoFundMe for him is ongoing at gofundme.com/f/support-donnys-battle-against-cancer.
For people who want to follow Grundhauser’s journey, his CaringBridge is at bit.ly/41xVDSI.
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