Surviving cancer takes a community

MAT-SU — What would you do if, suddenly out of the blue, you couldn’t hold one thought in a bucket? What would you do if a task you had done for almost 20 years, taking pride in the job you were doing and how it would reflect on your neighbors and the Mat-Su community, suddenly wasn’t even a blip on any radar?

What would you do if, then, you were laid off, forced to find work and, suddenly, what you had been trained to remember by sight — something you could do in your sleep — wasn’t there? Things like what variety of lettuce goes where, where onions need to be stored and what decorative assortment would draw customers? You couldn’t remember how often to rotate the tomatoes or oranges or what expirations dates were. And, you were three months shy from getting benefits or insurance of any kind. Abruptly, your mind was so fuzzy, those essential details for a growing family didn’t even register.

That’s exactly where Cyndi and Leon Jernstrom found themselves when the unthinkable happened. Leon had always provided for his family with jobs that had adequate benefit packages. He would work six to seven days a week, sometimes 12-18 hours, sometimes working multiple jobs.

“Hindsight is 20/20,” both Cyndi and Leon say. “Little things” had been happening … and everyone but Leon had been noticing.

Cyndi, their kids — Shelby, 16, Robert, 14 and Gracie, barely 3 — would notice that dad wasn’t “right,” he wasn’t firing on all cylinders. Leon would miss a word here, a thought there. Simple tasks became obsolete. Ordinary chores became just that — a chore, not a habit.

His place of employment where he had been let go said Leon needed a “change of scenery” after more than a dozen years of dependable hard work. He had prided himself on his work ethic and the “sight training” of what goes where on what vegetable or fruit cart.

Ironically, the job Leon was blessed to find , although more than 30 miles away from home, found him doing the same job as he had been at his prior employment — and found himself under the management of someone he had trained at his former place of employment. Talk about a lesson in humility.

In hindsight, Leon said he likely was not performing his former job at the same skill level he had in prior years. He said he realizes now “little things” had slipped: the way the vegetable display looked, items he forgot to put out or put too much produce out of. Leon said if the shoe were on the other foot, he’d have made the same hard decision to let him go.

Sound familiar? Unfortunately, it is happening too often to too many of our beloved Mat-Su families. The unthinkable hits when least expected. Our neighbors get dropped through the cracks in a system that is changing minute by minute. Health care and insurance rates are skyrocketing at astronomical paces. Benefit packages are getting harder for employers to offer, even when they desperately want to.

Insurance companies raise rates almost 34 percent in two years, and local companies are between a rock and a hard place. They want to keep their loyal employees, they want to offer them what they can, yet their hands are tied to the degree that more employers, especially small businesses, are cutting benefits and insurance packages — or not offering them at all.

Then it happened. After three short hours at his new job, Leon realized the moment came where he couldn’t keep even that one thought in a bucket, or in his brain. He doesn’t remember how he made it home the 30-plus miles.

Cyndi panicked. Leon never came home early and nothing about him seemed right. Not thinking how things would be paid for and family surrounding them, and they headed to the emergency room.

Leon was diagnosed with hepatitis C, which clouded an initial imperative diagnosis. The results of a CT scan, then an MRI, showed the unthinkable: glioblastoma multiform stage IV cancer and a cyst in the brain that would change their lives and impact their Big Lake community forever.

In four short days Leon went from working in the produce department of a local grocery store to fighting for his life in an ICU unit. Major brain surgery was performed. Surgeons couldn’t believe it. Radiologists held out little hope of him living more than a couple months.

The oncologist said, “I’ve never had someone make it this far with a diagnosis like this.”

The radiologist also said something that has stuck with Leon: “The ones who survive are the ones who are tough and fight it out.”

He was (and is) one tough Christmas Eve miracle — surgery was performed Christmas Eve 2009.

Today, Cyndi goes to work to provide for the family, running the floral department at Steve’s Food Boy in Big Lake while Leon goes through cycles of radiation, chemo, then a break; then double chemo for six months and currently on another break. In between, Leon is making the transition from breadwinner to daddy day care/housekeeper, all while dealing with the side effects of brain surgery, chemo, radiation, short-term memory loss and chemo fog.

From here it is up to him. Does he go for more chemo? Or does he go for quality vs. quantity? How do you make that decision when you have young kids like Gracie, Robert and Shelby?

How do one in two men and one in three women battling cancer in our Mat-Su community do it?

One day at a time with a community behind you encouraging, helping in any way they can, being the Mat-Su community we all know — like RealLove. They walk each mile with you through paperwork, denials and more. But Leon and Cyndi will tell you that one good turn deserves another, and as one pays it forward helping others, it becomes contagious.

Through Leon’s good days and bad, he volunteers at the local school, he has become involved in his church and various civic events. He was the top fundraiser for the American Cancer Society’s Mat-Su Relay For Life this year, earning more than $3,300 — not an easy task in between radiation/chemo and stage IV brain cancer. He raised funds so others could receive treatments, rides to radiation/chemo and more.

So what happens when you can’t hold even one thought in your bucket? Ask your neighbor. They know, and they will be there for you because we’re the Mat-Su!

Care Tuk is an 11-time cancer patient and advocate for cancer survivors and caregivers.