EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is the fourth in a series of stories about cancer survivors and caregivers to run in The Manning Times in the lead-up to Clarendon County Relay for Life 2016, which will be held 6 p.m. to midnight May 6 at Manning High School’s Ramsey Stadium.
Manning resident Barbara Ardis is well into recovery from a massive surgery in December that rid her of colon cancer.
At 88, Ardis said her doctors weren’t sure she would survive the surgery and anesthesia itself.
“They told me that they didn’t even do colonoscopies on someone over 80,” Ardis said. “I had ignored some signs while my husband was in a nursing home, and it needed to be done.”
Shortly after Ardis’s late husband, Herman, passed away in 2015, Ardis was told she had colon cancer.
“I couldn’t comprehend the results: The Big C,” she said. “No one in my family on either side had ever had cancer. That night, I went to bed saying over and over again to myself what the results were. I couldn’t believe it. I just kept saying, ‘I have cancer. I have cancer. I have cancer.’”
Ardis’s doctors told her she would probably have radiation to shrink her tumor and then surgery, possibly followed by chemotherapy.
“He recommended a surgeon in Florence, and my friend, Gail, drove me over,” Ardis said. “Following (some more tests) the surgeon gave me about 48 hours to pack my bag and head straight to surgery. At that time we planned for me to stay one week in Florence.”
Due to her age, Ardis was told she would stay six to eight week in rehabilitation. Her daughter, an administrative employee with a hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, headed straight to the airport and ultimately stayed by Ardis’s side for about three weeks.
“My son agreed to come once a week and get the mail and pay any bills that came in,” Ardis said. “The surgery was performed without a hitch, but I was too ill to even keep down ice chips and suffered violent nausea. The doctor said I had ‘sleepy bowels’ following the anesthesia, and he had to place to tube down to my stomach to prevent further episodes of nausea. I remained flat on my back in bed.”
After four days, the tube was removed, and Ardis was brought ice chips. But she still couldn’t eat them. She was sent for a port-o-catheter, which was placed in her shoulder so doctors could “run six bags of medication without having to stick me for each bag,” she said.
The tube was placed in Ardis’s stomach for a second time after a bout of nausea caused her to vomit, causing nurses have to re-sterilize her surgical wounds.
“I lost about six liters of fluid that day, and the doctor wanted to stop the nausea,” she said. “By now, I was in the second week of my stay with no relief in sight. My daughter was my heroine, as she performed all kinds of personal attention to me. Believe me, it was more than Jesus’s command to wash someone’s feet to show humility. She was on her feet day and night to help me.”
While her days were troublesome, Ardis’s nights were worse, she said. With her daughter asleep on a cot in Ardis’s room, the survivor said she was “alone in the dark.”
“I was so ill, and became very depressed,” she said. “I am ashamed to admit that I prayed that night, ‘God, please let me die.’”
“It was a selfish prayer, because I didn’t think about my children or my life at home,” Ardis said. “I was only thinking of myself and God didn’t answer that prayer.”
In her third week of recovery, Ardis described herself as “still desparate.
“I was in the third week of a stay that was only supposed to last a week,” she said. “As the darkness overcame me, I prayed, ‘God, if you won’t let me die, then You must help me live.’”
Ardis said she prayed at times all night, continuing to ask God to help her turn the corner in her recovery.
One morning, as the sun came up, Ardis felt a great sense of peace, she said.
“I put an ice chip in my mouth and it stayed down,” she said.
Having nutrients, vitamins and minerals pumped into her body through IV, Ardis joked with her doctor that “at the age of 88, my body wasn’t perfect, and he didn’t have to try to make it so now.”
“I had to be able to eat something before they would release me, so he agreed to cut the dosage in half, as it was killing my appetite,” Ardis said.
Following a meal of pudding and Jell-O at the end of her third week in Florence, Ardis was moved to the Clarendon Memorial Hospital Swing Bed Unit.
“There was a sign on the board in my room, saying, ‘Welcome, Miss Barbara,’” Ardis said. That night, I ate a full meal for the first time in three weeks and I kept it down.”
Ardis said she enjoyed her recovery in the Swing Bed Unit, a recovery and rehabilitation section of the hospital that is more like a home than a hospital wing.
“I felt like the days when my mother would put a cool cloth on my feverish head,” she said. “They made me feel like I was loved.”
There was little time for bed rest, Ardis said.
“The rehab crew was waiting for me: Mark, Will and Lou were all going to have a turn at my recovery,” she said. “There was physical therapy and occupational therapy. I couldn’t believe how weak I was following my three-week ordeal. They took it easy on me at first, but my routine of twice-a-day rehab became very rigorous.”
Ardis first learned to walk a few steps with a walker and someone holding on. Then, no one held on. Then, they found she had a blood clot in her leg, and she was rushed to ICU.
She returned to the Swing Bed Unit a few days later, and rehabilitation resumed.
“One of the bright lights in each day was the day room,” Ardis said. “This was where Stacy had all kinds of games and programs going on. We also were invited and strongly encouraged to eat lunch together in that room. There was a large puzzle on the table for anyone to try to find a piece to fit.”
Ardis said the highlight of each week were the Bingo games.
“After weeks of being so ill, it felt good just to be happy and laugh,” said Ardis, who spent nearly three weeks in the unit.
“When the day came for me to leave, I really didn’t want to go,” she said. “I felt so at home, and they took such pains to make me comfortable. I left my room accompanied by the ringing of a bell, and all the staff following me to the elevator. I was presented with a certificate saying I had been an awesome patient while there.”
The only thing better than the Swing Bed Unit, Ardis noted, was her diagnosis following her surgery.
“I was completely clear of cancer and did not need follow-up radiation or chemotherapy,” she said. “God had performed a miracle in my life, and I wasn’t sure what He had in mind for me, and I don’t know what He has in mind for me in the days to come.”
“All I know is that I want everyone to have faith,” Ardis said. “I want to tell everyone what He did for me, and what He will do for others. Don’t give up when dark days come. Don’t think of the hard times, think of a good place you would like to be in. Don’t look backward. Pray for hope and faith in your life, and His peace will come. And then be sure to thank Him for His miracle in your life because very day is a miracle.”
