Out in Greene County, Iowa

When you learn it’s your turn to face cancer, you just have to “suck it up and deal with it”

By CHUCK OFFENBURGER
July 19, 2009
COOPER, IOWA

Less than two weeks ago, I was a happy guy, glad to be alive, nearing my 62nd birthday, pretty good physical condition, counting about 400 miles I’d ridden on my bicycle this spring and summer, trying to get ready to ride at least two or three days of RAGBRAI, but concerned that I really seemed slow on hills, and my right ankle would puff up during the course of a day.

Now I’m a 62-year-old happy guy, glad to be alive and still in pretty good physical condition, thank goodness. But I’ve been diagnosed with cancer, it’s serious and I’ve already had two minor surgeries – a biopsy and implantation of a “port” near a collar bone – to get ready to start chemo therapy this week. I was slow on my bike on the hills because a gooey mass in my lower right abdomen was pushing on a vein coming out of my leg, messing with the circulation, causing some anemia and making the ankle swell.

I now know what I’m facing because of very quick work by my regular physician, Dr. Constantine Panakos at McFarland Clinic in Jefferson, oncologist Dr. Michael Guffy of McFarland in Ames, and surgeon Dr. Mark Vandenberg (a RAGBRAIer) in Ames, and especially their lab workers.

It’s “non-Hodgkins, follilcular lymphoma” cancer, which “has probably been brewing for some time,” Guffy told my wife Carla and me. Besides the lymphoma being found in that mass on my abdomen, they’ve found it in lymph nodes in my chest cavity, in my bone marrow and “probably” in my blood. That makes it “Stage IV,” which is advanced.

While that doesn’t sound very hopeful, this is still “a non-aggressive form of cancer that is very treatable,” Guffy said. “Most people with this kind of lymphoma are not diagnosed until they are in Stages III or IV because it is so slow growing. It usually winds up surfacing in some weird way, like your ankle puffing up.” He added that he’d “be surprised” if I’m not still his patient, for occasional consults, “five years from now, even longer.” He thinks I’ll be able to resume my normal lifestyle soon, including the kind of distance bicycling I love. In fact, he said one good thing I’ve got going for me is being in good physical condition, generally from all the bike riding I’ve done over the years. All the tests and scans have determined that my heart and other organs are clear and in good shape.

After I told family, friends and a few close colleagues about this last week, word has spread very fast, and I’m sure glad I didn’t want to keep it a secret. Carla and I have received an outpouring of prayers and support that have been humbling and amazing, and we deeply appreciate it.

That includes a couple of unsolicited but very touching things that friends in other faiths have already done for me.

My favorite Mormon bishop, Dr. Jim Teusch, who is also my dentist in our county seat town of Jefferson, came right over with a special batch of his famous rice pudding, which is nearly as good as what my mother used to make. Great comfort food.

And there’s a recovering Methodist in Tennessee who is praying the Catholic rosary daily for me.

That would be Douglas T. Bates III, my best friend for 44 years, going back to our freshman year together at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. When it comes to religion, Bates is one of the most curious and knowledgeable people I’ve ever known, especially among lay people. Several years ago, in his ecumenical stage, he was visiting the Catholic church in Centerville, Tennessee, where he is an attorney. One of the local Catholics introduced Bates to the rosary. Bates bought one, taught himself how to pray it, and did so off and on for a few years.

Last week, when I told Bates about my cancer, I mentioned that being a Catholic lad, I have already vastly ramped-up my prayer life, including spending time every day praying the rosary. I can’t tell you how moved I was when Bates said, “Well, then I’m praying it every day, too, from now on.”

And circumstances being what they are, he said, he was arranging new rosaries for both of us. (My light-blue plastic one has many missing beads and half-a-Crucifix.)

Bates and I share a hero. He is Rev. Jim O’Connor, a Catholic priest who has been a monk for 60 years at the New Melleray Abbey monastery near Dubuque. We visit Father O’Connor as often as we can. A World War II bomber co-pilot, and a graduate in English at DePaul University, Father O’Connor is the best thinker and writer I’ve ever known, as I’ve told you before. Bates told the monk by phone that he thinks my health circumstances require new rosaries. Father O’Connor replied that he had two left in a special stash. A number of years ago, his cousin had a personal audience with Pope John Paul II, and during that, the pontiff personally blessed several rosaries for him. The cousin gave some of the rosaries to Father O’Connor, and he’s been holding them ever since. He now has added his own blessing, and has the rosaries on the way to Bates and me for our daily use.

I have what some of you will think is an odd idea about prayer.

I do not, will not, pray for myself or ask for results or outcomes. My constant, simple prayer is “Thy will be done.” I try to understand what God’s will is, and try to do just that, although I often fall far short. I will, however, pray for others, and I have a long litany of people I pray for daily. And if you want to pray for me, I accept!

All of that comes from 20 years as an active member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I have learned so much about life in the “program,” as we call it, and probably the biggest thing I have learned is acceptance. It’s spelled out concisely in AA’s famous “Serenity Prayer,” which I’m sure many of you know goes like this: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

What can I do about cancer?

Truth is, not much. Except, I will do whatever I’m told by Carla Offenburger, Drs. Guffy, Vandenberg, Panakos and the army of angels who are on the staffs at Greene County Medical Center in Jefferson, Mary Greeley Medical Center in Ames, and the McFarland Clinics in both towns.

Am I afraid? Of course. But I’m not whacko with fear, at least not yet. I hope I won’t be.

One thing for certain, I have not been tempted for an instant to get into the “why me’s?” over this. In June, nearby Jefferson lost one of its best volunteer workers, especially for school events, when 47-year-old Sandi Weiss died from cancer. Last Wednesday night, July 15, one of Iowa’s most talented younger journalists Jay Wagner, a great friend of mine in Des Moines, died at 45 of cancer (see sidebar to come, following this story). There are so many people around me who have fought cancer into remission, are battling it now or have lost their fights with cancer, well, I don’t think it’s unusual at all that I’d get cancer. It’s just my turn.

Besides, I’m an Offenburger male who is 62 years old. It’s been rare that men in my family last this long. So I feel like I’ve been living on bonus time for a few years already, and I’m sure bicycling has facilitated that. My life has been so good that I yearn for more, and if it’s there for me, I will cherish it like never before.

Believe me, I am far from defeated. I go into this challenge with robust optimism, pretty strong spirituality, my acceptance and actually some serenity.

There are two other bits of consolation and advice I’ve recently received that I really want to share.

My old friend Merl Eberly, of Clarinda, whom I’ve known almost 50 years as a fellow sportswriter and founder & long-time manager of the wonderful Clarinda A’s baseball program in southwest Iowa, has been battling cancer three years. In one of the first e-mails I received this week, after word of my illness was getting out, was from his wife Pat Eberly.

“We said in our Christmas letter that the 3 F’s, which have always been important in our lives, took on an even more significant place in our day to day living – Faith, Family and Friends,” Pat Eberly wrote. “They’re what keep each of us going. Each day is a gift, and it is important to remember that. The fact that we are not in control is something that I think you men have a harder time with than we women. Merl says that I’m such a compassionate wife, reminding me how several times I’ve told him that, even though he wasn’t feeling the best, he had to suck it up and deal with it. You do have to keep some humor going, too, to survive.”

Sometimes, I’m betting, the humor is peculiar.

That takes us back to my great Tennessee friend, Doug Bates.

We talk two to three times per week, and e-mail regularly, but we were oddly out of touch the week my cancer was being diagnosed. Things were happening very fast for me and for Carla, and we barely could keep up. On July 9, the docs found the gooey mass and the anemia. On July 10, I had the surgical procedure for the biopsy and extraction of bone marrow in Ames. Later that day, in a session with Dr. Guffy, we learned what I’m facing.

That Friday night, I was still shaking off the last of the anesthesia and feeling a little shell-shocked as Carla and I went to bed. Actually, though, sleep came easily.

Saturday, July 11, was my 62nd birthday. Carla got up early and went out to finish the lawn mowing job I’d started earlier in the week. I was sipping a cup of coffee, wondering what was coming next.

The phone rang just before 8 a.m. It was Bates. And this was what we’ve all come to refer to as “a Bates rage call,” in which he carries on, uninterrupted and at length, about such topics as Chicago Cubs baseball, Vanderbilt football, politics, the national debt, religion and more. You can hardly get a word in edgewise when he is on a roll. This time, he wanted to tell me about health.

“I just want you to know that I have not had a well day since my 62nd birthday on June 4th,” he said. “I’ve felt crummy every single day. Today is your 62nd birthday, and I want to tell you, buddy, this is what you’ve got to look forward to – you’re best days are behind you! Long-gone!”

Uh, Doug, I started, I’ve got a health issue to tell you about, too. But since you started first, O.K., what’s up with you since early June?

“No, no, let me go on to something else,” he persisted. “I’ve got several other topics I want to cover. And some of it’s good news. Like, President Obama in Ghana. Have you paid attention? You can see in the faces of those African people just how much it means for America to have a black president. This is good. Hey, wait a minute, Obama is just now getting ready to speak over there. I want to listen to this. Call you later. Bye.”

Click. My best friend! Hanging up on me, particularly right then!

I was startled, but quickly realized what had just happened was very funny. In fact, I laughed out loud. It was certainly going to make it easier later to tell him what was really going on with me. Carla and I, and her mother Sue Burt, who came up from Des Moines to help us for the day, were all awaiting Bates’ return call.

He finally called in the middle of the afternoon. Sue Burt answered, and since Bates knows her well, he asked her what brought her up to our farm. “Well, Carla had some errands to run and didn’t want to leave Chuck alone, so I’m up here helping take care of him,” Sue said, lathering it up, rolling her eyes, trying not to laugh, “What? Oh, yes, I think he can get up, Doug. Let me see if he’s feeling well enough to come talk to you.”

I took the phone, assured him that his phone call earlier in the day had been good medicine, the funniest thing I’d had happen in several days. I told him I’d been ready for something just like that.

I then quickly gave him my medical news.

He seemed genuinely shocked. Quiet, for a change, too.

“Well, first of all, I’m right there for you, whatever you need, whenever you need me,” he finally stammered in his low voice. “And I am obviously so sorry about my phone call earlier. I can’t believe I did that.”

Long pause.

“But, you know, this is really just another example of what’s been the most consistent element of our friendship for 44 years,” Bates said, “and that is, you never cease coming up with new ways to make me look like an ass.”

I love the guy!


You can write the columnist at chuck@Offenburger.com.



JAY WAGNER, WHO LOVED JOURNALISM MORE THAN ANYBODY I’VE EVER KNOWN, DIES FROM CANCER AT ONLY 45 YEARS OLD. JOURNALISTS ACROSS IOWA ARE MOURNING ONE OF THEIR BRIGHTEST YOUNG STARS.


By CHUCK OFFENBURGER
July 20, 2009
DES MOINES, IOWA

Twenty-nine or 30 years ago, when I was a young columnist roaming the state for the Des Moines Register, I received a letter in the newsroom from a high school boy who said he was writing columns for his parents’ newspaper in Sheldon in northwest Iowa.

Young Jay Wagner, then a sophomore or junior at Sibley High School, sent me some of his columns from the N’West Iowa Review. He asked for my thoughts on them, and added, “I won’t ask you for much more – just your job!”

I wrote back congratulating him on his work, sent him an Associated Press Stylebook and rattled off a bunch of ideas I told him I’d write about if I were a high school kid in Sibley. I also told him, “I hope I won't have to battle you for my job any time soon.”

Thus began a friendship, actually almost a collaboration, that lasted until July 15, when Wagner died at Mercy Hospice in the Des Moines suburb of Johnston after his courageous, inspiring and insightful 2 ½-year battle with melanoma cancer.

Jay P. Wagner 1964-2009

From the early to mid 1980s, Wagner just bloomed in the field. He was the star columnist and reporter for the Review and other papers and magazines published by his parents Peter and Connie Wagner. Older brother Jeff was also coming along in the business. The Review quickly became the biggest winner of major awards every year in the Iowa Newspaper Association contests, and Jay Wagner became a favorite of most journalists across Iowa – particularly those of his generation and just older.

His runningmate then, in newspaper circles, was David Johnson, who was the editor and publisher of the West Branch Times in eastern Iowa, another award-winning weekly newspaper. Many looked on the two of them as the young lions of Iowa journalism, and they were always leading the fun at the INA conventions.

Since they lived and worked a long distance from each other, when they’d come to Des Moines at the same time, they needed a meeting place – and for a couple of years at least, the meeting point they decided upon was my desk in the Des Moines Register newsroom. Suddenly, there they’d both be, shaking hands over my desk, telling me I had to take them out for a beer or coffee, then regaling me with tales of their latest journalistic triumphs. I was flattered to be an “old guy” they both felt so comfortable around.

“I’m guessing that was in about 1985 we were doing that,” Johnson recalled the other day. “I’m 58 now, so I’d have been about 34 then, and Jay was trailing behind me 12 or 13 years.”

I didn’t check this out, but I’m betting former Governor Terry Branstad and his wife Chris can still recall the fancy dinner they hosted at Terrace Hill, when Wagner and Johnson had purchased the swanky dining opportunity during a fundraising auction at an INA convention. “I remember Jay and I had both driven to Des Moines in our usual casual attire,” Johnson said. “But since we were going to Terrace Hill, we knew we should be wearing suits. So there we were in an alley behind a bank – about a block away from Terrace Hill – changing our clothes!”

Their careers took them in different directions. Wagner went on to KTIV television in Sioux City as a news producer, then the Sioux Falls Argus newspaper, then in 1992 he became one of my colleagues on the staff of the Des Moines Register. He eventually became “rural affairs editor,” a great match for his knowledge of life across the state. In 1997, he jumped at another opportunity, to become editor of The Iowan Magazine.

Johnson sold his West Branch newspaper in 1993. He re-located to northwest Iowa and, in 1995-’96, worked for the Wagners at the N’West Iowa Review. He’d always been interested in politics – his father was once a Republican candidate for governor of Iowa – and in the late 1990s, Johnson was elected to the Iowa House of Representatives. He was re-elected, served a second term and then in 2003 was elected to the Iowa Senate, where he still serves today and is among the Republican leaders.

The three of us remained good friends, talking often on the phone, seeing each other when we could.

One ironic twist in the relationship happened in 1998. That’s when I decided to leave the Register after 26 years there. I wanted to try other things in the second half of my career, among them college teaching. But one of the first calls I received, after my resignation was announced, was from the still-new editor of The Iowan magazine, Jay Wagner, offering me a position as a feature columnist.

The young guy who had once told me he wanted my job was now giving me one!

In my first column for The Iowan, I told readers about my early connection with the magazine’s editor, and then wrote: “There is a great lesson for all of us in my new position here. It is this – take time to answer and encourage young people when they ask you for a bit of your time and attention.”

Just as I’d given Wagner a little encouragement early in his career, I saw him doing the same with young Iowa journalists so many times.

Later, he became editorial director of the company producing The Business Record, CityView, DSM and other publications in Des Moines. Then he moved on to freelancing and ultimately discovered and began battling the cancer that finally took him. Through it all, he continued writing a regular column for his parents’ newspaper back home, just like he had since high school. In later years, that column was named “Letter from Des Moines,” and it was always great reading.

Wagner converted to Catholicism later in his life, and became a great Catholic. He and his wife CeCe Ibson have two young children, daughter Zoey and son Kiernan.

His visitation was held Sunday, July 19, at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Des Moines, and his funeral was there this morning, Monday, July 20.

Senator Johnson, who lives in Ocheyedan, was one of the speakers at the visitation, recalling his long friendship with Wagner.

I couldn’t stay for his remarks, so I don’t know if he mentioned it. But there’s another irony in the relationship he, Wagner and I have shared.

In February, Johnson was diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma, a kidney cancer. “We weren’t clear about the treatment strategy until early April,” he said. “Since then, I’ve had chemo with an oral medication. I’ve been lucky that the chemo doesn’t have side effects on me as serious as they’ve been for some of my friends. But, with early detection and treatment, I’m fairly confident about it now. I feel pretty good. The way I describe that to people is ‘I have my good days, and I have better days.’ ”

He said he didn’t want to tell anybody at first. “Then I had someone tell me, ‘Secrets can make you sick,’ ” Johnson said. “So the next day, I went into our Republican caucus in the Senate, gathered everybody and said, ‘O.K., here’s what’s happening to me,’ and everybody’s been great about it.”

The senator said he learned a good deal about cancer in his long conversations with Wagner in the last couple of years, particularly since last February when he was diagnosed himself.

“There is a special bond and connectedness I sense among people who have cancer,” he said. “It sure came home to me once I was diagnosed. The friendship with Jay became so much deeper and more meaningful. The conversations were better than ever.

“I think that people around us who don’t have cancer themselves, still feel some of that same bond we have. I think that’s why you see these Relay for Life events in small towns all over everywhere being such fabulous successes. It’s like we’re all in it together.”

I’ll be learning a whole lot about that now myself.


You can write the columnist at chuck@Offenburger.com.