Thanksgiving is special holiday for Radlinger family this year

By Meg Heaton

The Thanksgiving holiday was made to order this year for the Joe Radlinger family of Tower Road. While every year usually contains things to be thankful for, this year the family feels a bounty they have never known before.

Kay Radlinger, 37, is cancer free this Thanksgiving and that is the best news since she received her diagnosis of leukemia on Friday the 13th in March 1998.

She went to her local doctor with what she thought were flu symptoms that had hung on too long. She finally decided to go to the doctor when trying on a pair of pants at Shopko totally wore her out. The doctor immediately told her something was seriously wrong and leukemia was a definite possibility. She was referred to a hematologist the next day but Kay believed there had to be a mistake. If she had anything wrong, it was probably diabetes, something that ran in her family.

But her denial didn't last long. "I went to the appointment the next day and there it was in big letters 'Cancer Research Center.' That's when it really hit me that I might have cancer."

That was Thursday. She received a phone call from Dr. Quevado at United Hospital the next day, Friday the 13th, and he gave Kay and Joe the bad news. For both of them, life changed forever with that phone call. Kay immediately thought about her mother who had died just a year earlier from a cancerous brain tumor and about her two children, Christine, now 9, and Joseph, 7.

But there wasn't time to take the news in slowly. Kay had ALL, a very fast growing type of leukemia, and she was told to be at the hospital Saturday morning to begin aggressive chemotherapy. The next three weeks became a blur of therapy, letting family and friends know, arrangements and just letting the news sink in.

At the time, Kay was the coordinator of Operation HELP, which offers emergency assistance to people in need in the Hudson area. The job required Kay to speak with individuals and verify their needs and issue checks to help with rent or utility bills. The job also involved speaking to groups about HELP's mission, coordinating the annual clothing drive and Christmas campaign and doing some fund-raising. All that stopped that Friday afternoon.

She was an active member of the Rock Elementary Parent Group and a volunteer at the school. She took care of family finances, and saw to the day-to-day chores and tasks of the household. And she and Joseph, not yet in school, were constant companions. That too, all came to an abrupt end.

It was discovered that Kay carried the Philadelphia chromosome. That meant, even if the chemotherapy put the cancer into remission, it would be back within three months. The only viable treatment that would save her life would be a bone marrow transplant.

Kay's five siblings were immediately tested to see if they could be donors. Remarkably, three matched perfectly and the best match was her brother Mark, a truck driver from southern Wisconsin. "It's kind of funny, he's the guy who eats Hershey bars and Coke for breakfast. And he used to always pick on me when we were kids. We weren't that close because he's older than me. But that all changed," said Kay.

Kay's chemotherapy continued through June and the cancer went into remission. But there was little time to celebrate as preparations began for the transplant.

In July Kay underwent full body radiation followed by another round of even more intensive chemotherapy. She recalled that it helped that the two technicians who administered the radiation therapy were "gorgeous" and she could listen to music by the Back Street Boys and Savage Garden as she stood in the Plexiglas booth.

The harvesting of Mark's marrow was very successful and he was in Kay's room eating a quarter-pounder and French fries within a few hours. The transplant of the marrow to Kay was just like one of the many transfusions she had undergone. It was a piece of cake compared to what lay ahead.

Horrible side effects

There was no way to prepare for the side effects she experienced from the radiation, the chemotherapy and the medications she now had to take.

"They tell you this might happen and that might happen but until it does, you can't imagine what it will be like. I know they don't want to tell you some things because they might not happen, but I wish I would have known more so I could have been a little better prepared."

Mouth sores that ran from her lips through her esophagus made it painful to swallow even water. Her fingernails and toenails fell out from the radiation. She had almost constant nausea and she had to retrain herself to eat. She was in and out of the hospital four times between August and Christmas of 1998 with as many as six infections at once. Often she would become ill in the middle of the night and the neighbors would be called to help Joe get her to the hospital and to take care of the children.

Her last trip to the hospital was in December 1998. She remembers that she and Joe picked up their children just before midnight on Christmas Eve and went home.

She takes 20 pills a day now including a steroid and anti-rejections drugs. She expects to be off the steroid by January and off the rejection drugs by her birthday in April. Her latest blood tests were all "Ns" for normal.

But life will never be normal again according to Kay. The experience has deeply affected her relationship with her father and siblings. "We were never a touchy, feely kind of family. But when this happened it all changed in an instant. I know them in a way I never did before and I know what we mean to each other."

Kay's sister, Denise, was with her every chance she could be. Her brother, David, spent four weeks with her when she first came home from the hospital, and the rest of the family keeps in constant touch.

Life at home for Joe and the two children is completely different now. Joe, who is employed by Ecolab in the Twin Cities, had to not only keep on working but had to take over the day-to-day household tasks Kay had always handled, everything from day care arrangements for the kids to calling to have the septic tank pumped out.

Kay said one of the most difficult things for Joe was accepting all the help that was offered to the family from the first news of Kay's illness. Joe, she said, is used to being self-reliant and it was hard in the beginning for him to accept outside help for his family. "Joe was my lifeline through all of this. I couldn't have made it without him. I'm just so glad things are finally good enough for him to take this hunting trip. He needed it and I know now he can go away and I'll be OK."

And the help came from everywhere. Ecolab made it possible for Joe to spend as much time as needed with his family. Volunteers drove Kay to chemotherapy. Meals were brought to the house every day for almost a year courtesy of friends from the family's church, Bethel Lutheran, from the parent group and others. A schedule was drawn up for caring for the children before and after school. The church took up a special offering to pay for cleaning services that were a necessity because of Kay's susceptibility to infections. People dropped off Easter baskets and Halloween treats and Christmas gifts for the kids. Joe's mother wanted to thank people by making something small to give them, but Kay said she wouldn't know where to start making a list.

"It is hard to explain how moved we were by all this. We had only lived here a year when this happened and we were helped by people we have never met. It brought us to tears many times," said Kay. She hopes this story will act as a sort of "thank you" note to all the people who reached out to her family.

When mom got sick

Easy to overlook in the dire days of her illness, the Radlinger children felt both the loss of the family they knew and the support and concern of those around them.

When asked how his mother's illness made him feel, Joseph, a first-grader, said he was "bored." But as he talked it was clear that bored really meant scared. "I was afraid she was going to die but I didn't want to talk about it. I was afraid to say that out loud. It made it hard to play because I thought about it a lot," said Joseph. "On days when mom was sick in her stomach, it was hard to go to school." He got into the habit of running up the driveway from the bus after school. He wasn't sure if he would find his mom at home or back in the hospital.

He misses the way things used to be. His mother can't play baseball, soccer or anything too active. "We can't do much things like we used to but now we play cards and games, especially Clue. That takes my mind off things," said Joseph.

Christine is in fourth grade at Rock Elementary and she is sure she is "tougher" now than she was before her mother got ill.

She remembered how she felt when her mother told her about the cancer. She came in from school that Friday afternoon and found her mother crying in bed. She asked what was wrong and her mother said it was something bad. Did she really want to know?

"I said yes, I had to know what was wrong. When she told me leukemia, I didn't know what that was. But then she said cancer and I knew that was what Grandma died of and I burst into tears. I really drenched the Kleenexes that day."

Both children worried that the cancer might be contagious, particularly since the recent death of the their grandmother. Said Christine, "This is bad. My mom is my grandma's daughter and I'm my mom's daughter. I thought I would get it too."

It was important to Christine right from the start that she know as much as she could about what was happening to her mother. "I didn't want to be surprised. I just figured it would be easier if I knew. I think I should know."

Friends were important in helping Christine cope with her family's ordeal. Her best friend Riley was someone she could share her "deep thoughts with" and who would let her talk about how she felt. It was hard getting off at different places in the morning and after school. "I had to keep track of where to go and who was supposed to pick me up. It was a lot to keep straight."

And there were adults she came to rely on as well. "Our neighbor Nancy Thompson and our friend Sally Giese were good friends to me. I always knew I could tell them things and they wouldn't blab it all over. That made it easy to talk to them, to tell them how I was feeling."

Christine still has a close relationship with her second-grade teacher, Mrs. Kordum, who she said was "really confident in me and still is."

Christine believes she is more open to people now and she has learned that talking to people about how she feels usually makes her feel better.

Things at home keep getting better and better. Her mom is able to do more and she has gotten used to doing more around home herself. And she and her dad are closer than ever.

According to Kay, the future for she and her family is no longer next year or farther down the road, it is tomorrow - and every day she is learning to live with that. "That takes some getting used to. You try to look ahead but you can't help but remember what you've been through."

Christine did not hesitate when asked if she had any advice for families like hers who are dealing with serious illness. "Oh, yes. I'd tell them to stay calm. You don't know what will happen. Trust in God and He'll probably help you like He helped me."