Attending the opening day DCHS basketball game against Boyd Christian School Tuesday, I knew it was a benefit for local coach Jerry Foster who is bravely facing what is a dreadful disease called cancer.
He spoke during the game, and said although he was going through chemotherapy and his doctors said to avoid crowds due to low resistance to germs, coach Foster said he still felt like hugging everyone involved during his moving words.
I do a lot of dissemination of information on cancer, cancer awareness, fund raisers, etc, so you know I would think I was aware of how cancer can devastate its hosts, their families and friends and the community in general.
What I found out this week is, I had only a passing acquaintance with the disease and what it could do until it came knocking on my door.
Last Wednesday, my wife of 35 years come this February, went to work as usual. Nothing amiss really, she loves her job with the school system in Warren County. Later on that afternoon, she was suffering such horrible pain in her side, her doctor advised I take her to the hospital in Murfreesboro.
We headed that way, and I thought well, she has a kidney stone or an infection or something and they would take care of it in urgent care.
Three hours, an x-ray and CAT scan later a VA doctor came to us and dropped a bombshell.
“I’m very sorry to have to tell you this,” he said. “You’ve got a mass on your pancreas that has spread to your liver. I’m sorry but you have cancer.”
Granted, this doctor didn’t have the best bedside manner in the world but we looked at each other as if an alien had landed from a flying saucer and greeted us saying take me to your leader. In fact, I would have much rather been probed by alien beings with whatever methods they employ than to have been the recipient of the news we were just given. I felt like someone had kicked me in the stomach and she had the most frightened look in her eyes I have ever seen.
This was so surreal I thought how can this be happening? She was healthy and vibrant this morning now they’re telling us she’s terminally ill?
So they sent her by ambulance to Nashville, and I went home to get her things and some for me and got to the hospital about an hour later
More tests, probes and scans confirmed what they told us, she had pancreatic cancer that had metastasized. Now we’re waiting for pathology to confirm what it is so she can begin chemotherapy and our world was changed forever.
In this time of Thanksgiving, I was first really angry and thought how this can be happening. I am thankful for the years we’ve spent together and we’re not giving up by any means and I’ve been praying every day.
I wanted to tell you, it only took a CAT scan to change our world; don’t wait for someone to give you one out of necessity … do it right away. It takes an hour and if they find something it might not be too late.
Contact Steve Warner at
news@smithvillereview.com
