No I am not talking about Carole, well yes I am, but she isn’t
the “Big C”, well maybe she is. Before I
get anymore confused I had better write this and explain what I mean.
This story starts in 1986, 28 years ago. Life was hectic. I was a partner in a firm in Birmingham,
Carole was working as a counselor at the vocational school in Talladega County,
and we had two small boys. I hated my
job! I was leaving the house at 6:00 in
the morning and not getting home until 6:30 or 7:00 at night. My kids were growing up without me being at
home. Carole was working her ass off to
take care of them, cook our dinner and do her job at the school. I won’t say life wasn’t good, it was just too
hectic and we didn’t have time for each other.
There were four partners in our firm; one of them accused me
of not pulling my weight. I was pissed;
I knew where the work was coming from in the office. I had the secretary pull the records for the
past year and give me the total volume of payment received. I was producing 60% of the revenue for the
firm. I wasn’t getting 60% of the
money! At about the same time there was
this new thing on the horizon called CAD (Computer Aided Drafting) that I was
total captured by. The other partners
thought it was some weird idea that would pass on one day soon and there was no
reason to invest that type of money in something as crazy as that. I said screw you guys I will buy the system
myself. So I spent about $10,000 on a computer
system and software to have a CAD station.
We had two jobs in the office I did the one using the CAD system. The other was done using our traditional hand
drafting system. At the end of the jobs,
the CAD job took much more of my time but the profit on the job was much
better. OK, just so you have the
picture, I am doing most of the work for the firm, I have a method where I can
make a higher level of profit and I can spend more time with my wife if I quit
and work in Pell City. The first of
March, I gave them the KMA award and walked out the door. I set up my office in our house. I was home and got hugs and kisses from
everyone in the afternoon around 3:00. I
was doing intellectually stimulating work.
At the end of the April I had already made more money that I had the
previous year.
In May, ACEC was having a convention at Sea World. Uncle Sam gives me a big discount on travel
and hotel rooms when I go to conventions.
(Statue of limitations has long since closed on this Mr. IRS) We pack up and fly to the convention. May have been the best convention ever. Carole and I, boys in tow, go to all the
cocktail parties and we spend the rest of the time at Sea World and Disney with
the boys. Life was good.
But wait, there was something concerning Carole. She had a lump in her right breast. The doctor told her it was OK not to worry
about it. She didn’t accept that answer
and forced them into doing a biopsy on the place. The results came back; it was “The Big C”,
Cancer. Our world came apart. At first I was in denial. It couldn’t be true. We got second opinions. It was true.
The only choice was a radical mastectomy. The surgery went well but it was hard on
her. Looking back, I wasn’t as much
help, as I should have been. I felt I had
to work, because if I didn’t work we weren’t going to have money for house
payments and food.
It was serious, hard surgery. While she was in the hospital a woman walked
in the room and introduced herself. She
was from the “Reach to Recovery” program.
She talked with us about what Carole would have to go thru in the next
few months and answered tons of questions she had about what life was like
after the operation. Questions that only
a woman who had been thru the surgery could answer. I don’t know who she was, we never saw her
again. She was an angel that day.
Recovery was hard. Carole’s
sister Julie spent a lot of time with us during and immediately after the
surgery taking care of the boys. The
boys later told us they had no idea of the seriousness of the problem and were
having a blast with their Aunt Julie. I
watched her cry many mornings as she did her exercise to get mobility back in
her arm. It was devastating to me to see
what she was going thru. She was tough
and worked hard at recovery.
Things had finally stabilized and were beginning to go pretty
good when she found another lump in the same area which meant going back to
surgery. My mother was in the waiting
room with me when they came out with the news.
She had cancer in her lymph nodes.
I didn’t have a clue what a lymph node was, but every time I had heard
of someone having cancer in their lymph nodes they died. I couldn’t believe the words, it was like I
was having a bad dream and couldn’t wake up, the room was spinning, they told
us to wait for her back in the room. I
made it to the elevator and passed out.
Until the night she passed away that was “The Worst Moment of my
Life”.
The surgeon told us he wanted her to see this new oncologist who
had just come to town. The surgeon also warned
us he was pretty aggressive which was great and exactly what she wanted. She didn’t want any chance of not seeing her boys
grow up.
Chemo was tough. She
was working, taking care of two small boys and dealing with chemo. My mother was a saint; she went with Carole
to every one of her chemo treatments.
Norma, my secretary (and other mother) and I took care of the boys. Carole lost her hair and was very sick during
most of the treatments. She kept
going! Never missed work, never missed
any of the boys programs or any of my crazy stuff. I still don’t know how she did it.
She was concerned about her looks and believe me there is no
sex life during chemo. I will just leave
it at things just don’t work. It was one
of the few times I have seen her insecure.
She wanted to know if I still loved her in the shape she was in. This was the girl of my dreams. I assured her I still loved her. Besides “if I can love you when you are bald
with one boob, I will be around for a long time”. We have shared that line many times with friends.
If she thought “Reach to Recovery” was hard she hadn’t seen
anything yet. Reconstructive surgery
was, well I just can’t tell you how bad it was.
She asked her doctor why he didn’t tell her it was going to be so hard. And he replied, if I had told you, you
wouldn’t have done it. It wasn’t just
one surgery it was multiple surgeries.
Her body kept rejecting the implants and they had to do it again and
again. I think she had four trips to the
operating room before they finally got it to work. All during this time she never slowed
down. The boys and me always came first. She was their scout leader. She sewed costumes for the “Full Dress Book
Reports”. She had very little sympathy
for women who wouldn’t be involved their children’s lives. She was nice and encouraging to them but she
dog cussed them to me. She finally lost
it one day when this women who didn’t work told her she didn’t have time to
help with something in Scouts. She used
a few four letter words and told her she worked every day, took care of the
house and fixed a dinner every night for her family and was undergoing chemo
therapy, and if by God I can do this, so can you. Get up off your lazy ass and make something of
your life. She eventually had the other
breast removed and reconstructive surgery done on it also, as a preventive
measure.
I won’t tell you we had a perfect relationship during this
time. She was scared, frustrated, tired
and generally felt miserable for about 2 years.
I had to learn to be a kinder, gentler person. She was always a perfect mom to her boys and
a perfect family member to our families, but she needed a release and sometime
I got the brunt of her frustrations. It
was probably well deserved. I agreed
with and to, a lot of things I didn’t believe to be good or true. I turned the other cheek. I walked away from a few conversations. She needed total and undivided support. (As a side note never ever tell a red headed
woman to calm down.) My brother-in-law
told me he saw a major change take place in me during this time.
Life finally got back to the new normal. We saw that life was precious and you had to
love and enjoy it each day. We made a
vow to always have fun. We went, we did,
we saw, we enjoyed, we hugged and kissed more.
We took “No Tan Lines” cruises to the Virgin Islands and the two of us
sailed alone on a 40 foot boat for a couple of weeks each summer. Paul and
Michael thought we were disgusting. (OK
Paul and Michael, we did actually wear our swim suits, well most of the
time.) It is pretty amazing that two
people who have been married for 20 plus years can spend two weeks alone, love
every minute of it and still talk to each other at the end of the trip. We bought a boat on the coast and then she
wanted a bigger boat. We sailed across
the Gulf of Mexico several times. She
loved seeing the Milky Way from the middle of the Gulf. We watched the moon set in the middle of the
night. Life was good and getting better.
We thought of it as a second chance to do things we hadn’t
done. Carole got more involved in the
community. She retired from her job and
ran for the school board. She got active
in the American Cancer Society and worked for reach to recovery. She became a trainer for volunteers in the
program. She was chair of the United Way
Campaign. She was Citizen of the Year
for Pell City. She took on special
projects like not smoking in restaurants in Pell City. She worked tirelessly. She told one of our ministers recently that
she knew that God must had saved her so she could help other people and she had
always tried her best to do be a helper.
She impacted a lot of lives. So
many people have told me of the positive impact she had on them. She could give hard love advice and people
appreciated what she said and didn’t get mad at her. This was truly a unique ability.
Things went well.
Cancer checkups went from weekly, to monthly, to quarterly, to yearly,
to you are cured don’t come back. We
watched the boys grow up, graduate with honors and scholarships, graduate from
college, get great jobs, find people they loved and cared about. I got my credit cards back. Thank you Jesus!
A few years ago she told me something and looking back it may
have been the start of her knowing something was going on. She told me she had made a pack with
God. “If he would let her see her boys
grown and happily married her life would be complete. As time passed and her request was being
fulfilled she was beginning to worry about her deal.” We laughed about it, shared it with our
Sunday School Class and friends. I told
her she should have asked for great grand kids.
She told me she didn’t want to be greedy.
Then about three years ago it happened again. We were working in the yard and her back
started hurting. Well hell, you rake
leaves for a few hours and you are 63 years old your back is supposed to
hurt. It didn’t stop hurting. She went to the doctor and they told her that
her back was broken. The only problem
was you couldn’t break your back the way it was broken. The only way you can break your back like
that is with cancer. Oh my God, not again!
They repaired her back and samples confirmed the doctor’s
first impression. It was Breast Cancer,
stage four. The orthopedic doctor and
our niece Beth, who works in the cancer center at St V East, recommend an
oncologist. We had our initial meeting
with him, he was great but Carole wanted to use her oncologist that she had
used years before. About two days later
Jimmy Harvey her original oncologist called, he was a partner of the doctor we
saw, and told her that she was his patient.
He had got her thru this one time and he would do it again.
We went into hyper mode on the bucket list. While we had crossed the equator, the
International Date Line there was still places to see and things to do. We worked treatments around trips to Maine,
Equator, Europe, and Virgin Islands. I
am not talking long weekend trips we were gone six or seven weeks at a
time. We had fun. We met new best friends; we took old friends
with us. Last year she was got on to me
for working too much, I am supposed to be retired, and we need to do more
things together. I pointed out to her we
had been gone 16 weeks that year not including long weekends at the boat every
other weekend. We laughed and vowed to
do more next year.
We had been getting positive results from her treatment, Dr.
Harvey was positive for the next couple of years. We got back from France last
June for her check up. New scans showed
places in her liver. I didn’t want to
read what Google told me about liver cancer.
I am sure she read the same thing.
Her family insisted we go to Anderson in Houston for more opinions. We did, their opinion was do what your Doctor
in Birmingham is telling you to do. She
started treatments. The thought of
loosing her hair was devastating. I am
sure I helped when I told her that at least this time she would be “bald with
two boobs”. She did well with the
treatment. They would zap her for a
couple of days and she would spend most of her time on the sofa. After that she was up and off to the boat or
some other adventure. January came and
time for new scans. Things were good,
places in the back had cleared up and places on her liver were much
smaller. Only four more treatments to go
and chemo would be finished, although we knew there would probably be more for
the rest of her life.
We were off to the Leeward Islands on a 485 ft. sailboat with
the boys and their partners. She was
amazing to everyone on the boat. Her
cute little hats and red wig never slowed her down. Many of the people on the ship came up to the
boys and me and told us how impressed they were with her attitude.
At the end of March she was scheduled for new round of scans. They weren’t good. They showed new places in her bones and the
places in her liver were much larger.
The chemo wasn’t working. The
doctor told us he didn’t have any other chemo options for her. All three of us cried. We knew of some advanced studies in
Nashville. It took a while to set up the
appointments and by the time we got to see them her liver numbers were way out
of the range of acceptability. Ten times
normal values. Her doctor went all the
way to Director of FDA to see if she could get the medicine under a
“Compassionate Care” program. No
luck. In May Dr. Harvey tried one other
form of treatment. He told her it was going
to be bad.
We spent most of the month of May visiting with some friends
and spending time on the boat. We
anchored out several times but it was obvious that she was struggling. The last couple of days we were there she had
to hold my arm as to stabilize her self as we walked down the dock. The last day she couldn’t get on the
boat. Michael and I had to push and tug
on her. It was time to go home.
Each day was a steady decline which meant more doctor
appointments. She couldn’t tolerate the
chemo. She had sores all over her body,
she was miserable and the doctor had to stop the treatment.
The day she passed away, she got up that morning, had
breakfast and took a bath on her own.
Paul came for a visit at 10:00 they laughed and talked about his new job
for an hour and she wanted to rest. I
checked on her at noon, she was sleeping soundly; at 2:00 Alain and Sandy came
for a visit. We couldn’t get her
up. Home health nurse came and said she
has to go to the hospital now. The
evaluation at the hospital told the doctors her liver had completely stopped
functioning. It is hard to maintain
composure when the doctor tells you the girl of your dreams has less than 24
hours to live.
She was in a lot of pain and told them to give her something
to make it go away. They moved her in a
room and I don’t know if she ever recognized anyone after they moved her. A little before midnight we were alone in the
room. Of course I was crying like a
baby. I looked up and she had a tear in
her eye, I wiped it away, told her I loved her and always would, she took one
final breath.
I probably should end the story there, but I have to add the
moral to the story. Of course I would
have loved for her to have never gone thru dealing with cancer and I would have
given anything to have enjoyed a 70th wedding anniversary with
her. We had a great life together. I think we were granted a lot of years we
wouldn’t have had, if it hadn’t been for modern medicine and good doctors. She, me and we made the most of those
years. She seized the moment and made
the best of each day. Her passion was
helping people. She did that. I hope everyone uses her as model to live
their life.
