Beverly Kanthak doesn’t want Christmas to come.

She wants the days leading up to Dec. 25 to drag out and seem like forever.

It’s not that Beverly doesn’t enjoy every minute of the holidays. It’s just that it will be her last. When it’s over, she will never celebrate another Christmas.

Beverly is dying.

Beverly and Rick Kanthak

The 61-year-old was given four to six months to live when she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in October. She battled cancer before and beat it. This time, she was told it was terminal.

“I am blessed and I feel blessed for every day that I have with family and friends … and sometimes I am mad. I beat it. Why do I have to do it again? Is this the way it is going to end? It is hard when you are told four to six months. You don’t know when it is going to happen.”

Beverly is trying to be brave for her family, in particular, her husband, Rick, who cannot speak about the inevitable. They have been married 24 years.

But she worries. She worries about the bills he will be left with since neither of them have health insurance. She worries because she has no survivor benefits. She worries because her funeral and tombstone will cost at least $17,000. Money the couple, both retired because of health problems, do not have to spare.

“I am trying to have a good outlook and everything,” she said, sitting in the Moline home the couple takes care of for the neighboring church they attend. “I am really trying to have a good outlook for my family, so they know I am not in pain. I have been telling them, ‘I am not in pain’, so I don’t want them to worry. I want to make it right and everything so my family doesn’t have to suffer so much.”

‘We cried’

Beverly’s first bout of cancer was in early 2006. She noticed the pain while her husband was battling his own cancer, which he beat. After getting him to his last two radiation treatments, doctors diagnosed her with stomach and esophageal cancer.

With that cancer, she didn’t need chemotherapy or radiation. She went back to her life after surgery to remove the cancer, appreciating each day more than ever.

But when Beverly started to feel that all-too excruciating pain again this summer, she knew the cancer had returned. It’s a pain you don’t forget, she said.

Beverly went for a PET scan at a mobile unit because she relies on Medicaid to help pay her medical bills. Nothing was found. The pain persisted, and one month later, she had a second PET scan at the Toledo Clinic.

It was pancreatic cancer, and she had a spot on her liver and each lung. She often wonders if her fate would be different if it had been found sooner. If she had had insurance.

“I was just in a trance. I knew it was going to positive. I could tell by the way I felt and the pain and everything. I knew it was going to be positive, but boy I was wishing in the back of my head and I was sitting there with my fingers crossed and everything and saying, ‘Let it be negative.’ … I don’t remember coming home. I don’t remember him talking or anything. We cried. We sat out in the car and cried for a long time and then Rick got us home and we cried.”

One more birthday

Since her diagnosis, Beverly has planned her funeral, thankful for the time to say goodbye. She has selected photos, chosen music and decided what she will wear at her funeral. She’s bought Rick a gift for his January birthday, which she hopes to give to him in person, and she has her grandson’s graduation gift ready for March. Her goal is to make it to her 62nd birthday in April.

“I have had a good life and I am blessed for every single minute that I have had. I am really, truly blessed. Sometimes I don’t think this is fair and I get mad and everything, and then I turn around the next minute and all of my blessings show through.

“In the summer when I was in Myrtle Beach carrying on and everything, never did I think I would be talking about funeral arrangements.”

She tries to relish every moment. She has three grown children — Lauri, Karen and Nichole — from her first marriage. She also has six grandchildren and one great-grandchild. She leans on April Throckmorton, who she considers a niece and a friend. April’s husband’s stepfather is Beverly’s nephew. The two have been close for the past five years.

“We have so many good days. We always laugh and smile,” Throckmorton said. “She will call me and say, ‘I have to get my dose of April today.’”

Throckmorton helped arrange for California-based Dream Foundation to send Beverly and her husband to the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. Throckmorton is also organizing a fundraising benefit from 1 to 5 p.m. Dec. 21 at K.D. Alexander’s Beauty and Relaxation, 7015 Lighthouse Way, Suite 2, Perrysburg. All donations for salon service will go toward Beverly’s medical bills and expenses. A 50-50 raffle and silent auction for gift baskets will also take place.

Every moment counts

“I don’t want to miss time. I don’t want to go to bed. And when morning comes, I want to get going and do something,” Beverly said.

“I cannot believe how time is going so fast now … I will look at my calendar and say, ‘Oh my God, it is the third week of this month, Oh my God, I only have two months left.’”

She tells people all the time that she loves them. Her hair has started to fall out because of the chemotherapy, which only stops the spread of the cancer it doesn’t cure it. She can barely maintain a weight of 120 pounds, which is hard to imagine for a woman who once weighed 230 pounds. She put on a size one the other day.

“I want them to remember my infectious smile and I want them to remember that I was always there for them. That I just loved them and that I loved everybody and would do anything I can to make their life better,” she said.

But sometimes it’s hard to smile. Even when you have faith like Beverly. Even when you aren’t scared of heaven. Even when you have time to say goodbye.

“I was pretty good after I was first diagnosed, right after they said, ‘You have four to six months and you won’t be here any longer,’ but now it’s like, I do not want to go.”

Benefit for Beverly Kanthak

Fundraising benefit from 1 to 5 p.m. Dec. 21 at K.D. Alexander’s Beauty and Relaxation, 7015 Lighthouse Way, Suite 2, Perrysburg. Services available will include chair massages, mini facials, brow wax, hairstyling and haircuts. All donations will go toward Beverly Kanthak’s medical bills and expenses. A 50-50 raffle and silent auction for gift baskets will also take place. To make a donation, call (419) 277-4329.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 11th, 2008 at 10:58 pm and is filed under Community, Featured.
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