“I really wanted Gilead to succeed…I wanted Bill to succeed…”
From the very beginning Patty was “bought in” to the idea of Gilead.
Her family had experienced cancer on a level that most families will never see.
Patty’s family knew cancer…
Her world was shaken by cancer in her family during her teenage years and has been prevalent ever since. It has touched her family multiple times…her grandparents… her mother… father…three sisters…many aunts and uncles. She even had a cousin who was diagnosed with male breast cancer.
Patty’s mom was diagnosed with sinus cancer in 1989.
Patty knows the dark places cancer can take a family. It was this experience that led her to be one of the founding board members of Gilead Ministries.
HOW IT ALL BEGAN...
Patty met Bill when the church she was attending changed pastors…and during a season when the church was going through a time of hurt…
There was some hurt in the church, a common experience for some, but Patty wasn’t aware of the reasons why people were not attending as regular as they had previously.
Bill was the new senior pastor in the church where he had served for the past 5 years in pastoral support roles.
A friendship that was forged during a difficult period and has been ever since…
Not only was Patty a founding board member, she also volunteered.
Patty’s roles would impact people over the entire spectrum of the cancer journey.
Her early roles were office support, card ministry and even visiting patients, something that Gilead did during their early days.
One of her passions was to help encourage and support care givers. Her life had been impacted deeply while she was caring for her mother during her cancer journey…through the ups and downs Patty learned about the many amazing ways you could encourage family and friends who were doing the physical and emotional care for people with cancer.
That passion led Patty to teach a caregiving training as part of the lay ministry training class
Gilead provided for local volunteers and churches during its formative years.
Patty not only taught caregiving, she lived it. Her and a friend, Susan Pettiford, would do special things for patients and especially taking note to touch caregivers as they visit.
From rice bags, to prayer shawls, to hand warmers, to lap quilts and beyond, Patty’s ministry has touched thousands of patients and their families.
Patty was eighteen-year old when cancer first impacted her family…while other high school students were planning what their lives would be like after high school, her family was dealing with an aunt and uncle who had cancer.
Patty’s most intimate look at cancer was when she cared for her mom, who had sinus cancer…
That was quite amazing as there were only seven cases in the state of Indiana at the time. You can imagine how the doctor’s words must have set in so heavily. It was the beginning of battle that would last for years until her mom’s fight was ended.
Her sister Mary, who was the first sister to experience the family trait with cancer, was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer…Mary’s battle was very difficult.
One of Gilead Ministries telephone encouragers called and checked on Mary regularly. Her journey with cancer ended in 2000.
To this day, Cliff, Mary’s husband, still gets a regular phone call to check up on him. Just recently the phone encourager shared this note about the phone call… “I want to tell you about my babies… (it was National Kitten Day)”
Patty’s sister Carolyn was diagnosed with breast cancer as well…when she found out about her cancer, she embarked on a path of treatment.
The battle was fierce and Carolyn, as a nurse, knew the most in-depth details of her cancer. There were days of bright hope…and days when life was all but done…
Unfortunately, the cancer would take its toll and in 2006, her husband Dick along with Patty and her sister Bertie said goodbye to yet another family member…and with heavy hearts they had to say their final words next to a casket of a loved one…again…
Once again, Gilead’s role as an encourager walked with Carolyn and Dick, and carried on the ministry to the family with ongoing support to Dick as he grieved the death of his life mate.
Dick’s journey here on this earth ended this past March, where he took his last few breaths here on this earth and joined his wife Carolyn in heaven. Both Dick and Carolyn had a strong faith, one which gave the family hope.
As the old song lyrics ask… “Will the circle be unbroken…” and the answer in Dick and Carolyn’s life, marriage, caring for each other and their eventual death…the circle was unbroken.
I can’t say I have personal knowledge of what it looks like when a person leaves this earth and awakens in heaven, but I got to believe that our loved ones have a place where we will be reunited with them and together will worship the Lord of our salvation for eternity.
It would be great if cancer left Patty’s family alone at this point…but it didn’t…
Roberta, Bertie as she was affectionately called, was diagnosed with a liver condition. That would eventually be determined to be cancer…and so the race began again.
Patty walked that path as a caregiver once again…though different than her experience with her mother, Patty would once again have to watch as someone she loved would battle the disease that had plagued her family since her teen years.
Bertie did fairly well for a while, then the ultimate outcome of liver disease and cancer, Bertie’s body could not take any more. Bertie would graduate to heaven in March of 2013, to join her family who had gone to paradise ahead of her.
That left Patty…
The survivor and caregiver who had encouraged not only patients through her ministry at Gilead, but had her family also…
At this time, with all the raw details of watching family die, Patty stepped back from her ministry at Gilead to let her heart rest…loss can take a huge toll on us…it had weighed down her heart.
And rest, away from ministry, was a necessity.
It would have been great if life got back to “normal”, whatever that is…but it didn’t…
Patty embarked on her own journey of health issues.
Headaches became too frequent and the pain was so distracting that Patty made an appointment to address this newest phenomenon.
A CT Scan was ordered, her world began to change, more drastically than she could imagine. Meds were given and the pain was addressed.
The next morning she was blind in her right eye!
Dr. Tom’s office addressed the issue immediately and found out that it was more than just a loss of vision, it was much, much deeper.
Dr. Tom’s office quickly referred Patty to a neurosurgeon in Ft. Wayne. The doctor in Ft. Wayne immediately knew she needed more extensive care than he could provide.
A phone call from the doctor to a friend in Indianapolis sent Patty for a life-altering visit.
Surgery was needed…immediately…
Dr. Paynor would tell his scheduler that he would need to surgery on the upcoming Tuesday, a day when he saw patients, and to reschedule the patients that day so he could do this emergency surgery to address what was impacting Patty’s vision.
The amazing thing, a God moment Patty would say, is that the 12 patients scheduled for that Tuesday, would each ask to cancel or reschedule their appointments, leaving the surgeon completely free to do the surgery Patty needed.
What initially seemed to be a tumor behind her right eye, was determined to be a lesion that grew through her optic nerve. Surgery would leave her with no vision in her right eye…
Next…
NEXT?
Yes…while struggling with fibromyalgia, and loss of vision in her right eye, Patty would be diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
If the story stopped there, life would be good wouldn’t it?
But…
Next…
Yes…again…
Patty retired from her job at IWU where she had provided help for students who were part of the online class process. SIX MONTHS LATER…she had a heart attack!
ER…trip to Indy…five bypasses…
Life is never dull for Patty!
Next was neck surgery…
Then back surgery…
And then infection from her sutures that would lead to surgery to clean her wounds, and do plastic surgery…
Today, she is at home healing from her wound issues…part of the time she had to wear a wound vac. The healing process at this time is 6 months along. The doctor has told her it would take a year or more to completely heal the incision area.
And so, how does Patty look at these many trials?
Well…she joked a little…and was serious as well…when she said, “I am a horrible patient, I was a big baby.” Carolyn had shared how difficult patients could be while hospitalized, so Patty tried to be a good patient and not bother the staff…and she, per her own admission, came up short.
Patty had some good reason after this last surgery on her back, the release of the pressure on her sciatic nerve that the surgery allowed, created pain beyond anything she had ever experienced. Life was not good…
But…
Patty says God was good…
Her faith through all of this was tested…and found a little short on occasion…
But one amazing truth of how God would work despite the up and down emotions and physical battles was Patty’s testimony of no fear during each of these challenges.
She decided she would do better at home instead of a facility, so her great nephew “broke her out” of the nursing home after a visit with her doctor.
God’s hand in Patty’s life was so amazing, as her family and friends stepped up so Patty could stay at her home, where the best healing could happen.
Today, as she spoke with us at Gilead, her faith is still the highlight of her life.
Her love for what God, and her praise for how he’s seen her through the craziness of illness that has filler her life, is evident and expressed.
Patty feels God used her health issues to bring her family together.
She is thankful for how God brought the best doctors, the right timing, the amazing support from family and friends.
Gilead is still involved in Patty’s world, and she has been a vital part of touching lives.
As we celebrate our 25th Anniversary, we are so thankful for committed lives like Patty’s. Today, Gilead reaches out to over 3,000 people each year.
Gilead’s client referrals is over 400 per year…
Twenty-five thousand cards will be sent this year…
More than 3,000 phone calls, each made by a compassionate and caring telephone encourager, will be made this year.
All of which would never have happened if people like Patty would not have taken the risk to invest their time and talents into this little idea that patients needed someone to reach out and encourage them before they got to hospice.
To have a pastor/chaplain/volunteer as a part of their health journey before they reach the critical place where hospice is needed.
Gilead is thankful for Patty and all she has invested in so many lives…
And we ask for you to pray as she continues this healing process and on to what God has next for her…
