New Normal, Wonderful Legacy
By Kathleen Andersen
I believe everyone has a story and the greatest story ever told is one’s own story.
In June 1979, my husband, Gary, went to see Dr. Matthews for his yearly physical. The phone rang that same day, and the doctor said that Gary had leukemia.
I remember looking at Casey, our youngest, who was 2 years old and didn’t come to the top of the kitchen table; Garth, who was 6 years old; and Seth, who was 8 years old. I thought this can’t be.
Gary said, “I feel too good. There can’t be anything wrong.” Gary took the slides on to Dr. Sloss to read, and he said there was a resemblance between a virus and this leukemia, and we would watch it for three months.
On the Sunday before Labor Day, as we were getting ready to go to my high school reunion in Greeley, the phone rang and Dr. Sloss said, “Gary has leukemia, and you need to go to Omaha to the med center.” I did not want to be apart from Gary after that day.
So began our trips every three months to Omaha. Dr. Davis told us it was chronic lymphocyte leukemia.
Gary said, “I need 20 years.”
For several years, we made the trips to Omaha every three months. Then his leukemia turned into lymphoma, and so began the chemo and radiation treatments.
Gary drove to Omaha every day for six weeks, leaving late afternoon to have one treatment, stay overnight (with very special friends whom I stayed with while Gary was hospitalized in the future), have another treatment early in the morning, then drive 150 miles home, only to repeat the same schedule the next day.
The summer of 1986, things began to get worse: Gary was hospitalized for pneumonia, his lungs filled up with fluid, and he developed cryptococcal meningitis, which required a six-hour IV every other day and 14 spinal taps before he conquered it. I was able to bring Gary home and administer the IVs at home because I was a nurse.
This began our family, neighbors and friends helping with the crops. We never would have gotten through this without their help.
Gary never complained. He always thought they would find a cure, and many times after sitting in the oncology waiting room, he said, “There are people a lot worse off than me.” Gary never experienced any pain, which was a blessing.
During the summer of 1987, Gary developed an infection in his blood, and it ended up in his liver. He was in the hospital the entire month of June. Friends brought our kids down to see him on Father’s Day and a few other times. Neighbors helped with the boys, and my mom came out to the farm every night and cooked them supper and let them call every night and talk to their dad and me.
He came home in July, and with that he began trips to the emergency room because of seizures and trips to oncology for blood transfusions. One week, he had 14 transfusions in three days.
It was very hard on the boys, who by this time were 10, 14 and 16. They grew up overnight; they didn’t have time to be boys.
One night as Gary was taking a bath, he called to me. He couldn’t get out of the tub. I knew this was the beginning of the end. He had a seizure and was taken by ambulance to Grand Island. He was sent to Omaha on Monday, the 24th of August. He kept having seizures, and the doctor called me into the hall and told me what I already knew. This was the end.
I called Father Nollette, and he went to our home and talked with the boys. Then good friends brought them down to Omaha. Gary was able to have me write a letter to the kids as he was too weak to write — something they will always have.
Gary raised his head up when he knew the kids were there. Casey, the youngest, kept watching the heart monitor. Seth, the oldest, said, “Don’t worry, Dad, we’ll take care of the farm.” We all stayed with Gary in the hospital room from Monday night until Wednesday night at 10 p.m., when he died.
Garth told me later he couldn’t cry because every time the phone rang that summer he thought it was me calling to tell them dad had died.
Our lives had changed forever. You never know what kids are thinking, and the best is to be honest and tell them the truth. I feel sad when I think about the sporting events, graduations, weddings and grandkids Gary has missed and what our boys have missed.
You never “get over it.” You learn to “live with it.” Even though life has never been the same again, it is good in a different way — a new normal. Gary has left me a legacy of three wonderful men.
UPDATE MARCH 1, 2009:
Kathleen’s husband, Gary, fought leukemia for eight years, leaving her raise three sons, ages 10, 14 and 16 at the time of his death. “You never ‘get over it.’ You learn to ‘live with it.’”
Kathleen said of her story, “Writing it was one thing, seeing it in print another. It brought it all back for all of us, my family. It was cathartic; it helped give us more closure. I’m glad I did it.”
She said she was surprised by all the feedback to her story, some of which came from people she hardly knew.
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