Valley survivor shares lessons learned from a lifetime battling cancer

WASILLA — Care Tuk passed a milestone few of us would care to reach this month.

“I just went through my 100th surgery two weeks ago,” she said Thursday.

There are kids who know her as Mrs. Loosescrews, a reference to the various implants holding her limbs and joints together. The count of times she’s had to fight cancer stands at 11.

She’s a wife, a mother and now an author.

“The book was originally going to be called ‘Does Job Have a Sister?’” she said.

But that title was tossed out for a few reasons. First is that the word “Job,” a reference to a book in the Bible, could confuse the book for one on economics. The second is because it was kind of a bummer. And the third was because you don’t want to ask a question in a book title that people know the answer to.

Tuk said for a new title she wanted some combination of that loose screws nickname and a reference to the many times she’s fallen down. But it was tricky finding the right combination.

“You’ve got to be careful with the word, ‘screw,’” she said.

A kid helping her set up her website came up with the winning combination almost by accident — “Loose Screws and Skinned Knees.”

The book will be making its Wasilla debut at Pandemonium on Saturday, where Tuk will sign copies from 9 to 11 a.m.

“It would have debuted at Relay (for Life) if someone had not found the last patch of ice,” Tuk said of a pretty nasty spill she took in the spring.

Tuk said that she stopped her chemotherapy treatment with this most recent recurrence of cancer.

“We stopped halfway through because it almost killed me,” she said. “We made a choice of quality over quantity and we’re not counting the days.”

That message — no regrets, don’t look back — is really the message of her book and of her life.

“You live for today because this is what you got,” she said. “If you live for yesterday, you’re just going to die wishing.”

It’s a message she’s taking with her as she tours with the book around the country. A message she imparts in her role as a public speaker, it’s embedded in the book’s subtitle: “Turning life’s obstacles and adversity into opportunities and adventure.”

“You can be in pain, but don’t be a pain. It’s an attitude, it’s a choice,” she said. “It doesn’t mean you have to be Polyanna.”

And it doesn’t mean you have to be strong all the time.

“I have my limitations. That’s what I’m learning,” she said. Recently, she said, a doctor had to tell her it’s OK if she sleeps more than she’d like.

“Moms aren’t supposed to be sleeping 10 hours a day,” she protested.

She said a lot of things have seen her through her trials — she puts faith, family and fun on that list. Also, chocolate.

“I never gave up the double fudge brownie ice cream,” she said, even when her appetite was so low she could only eat a melon-baller-scoop at a time. “A woman has to have chocolate.”

Also on her list of things that pulled Tuk through is her community, the Mat-Su Valley. The place is replete with characters she calls her “heroes of hope.”

“I blame it all on them. I say, ‘it’s all our fault I’m still here,’” she said.

So what’s next for Tuk? In the immediate future, right after the book signing Saturday she’s heading to Houston, where she’s helped organize the celebration of life for middle-schooler Cody Dennis, who died in October after a 10-month battle with cancer.

Dennis, she said, was the first kid who got really interested in the hardware and the process that had given her all of her many artificial parts back when she started doing educational speeches.

Eventually, Tuk said, she thinks she’s got a second book in her. And between now and then she thinks she’s going to take up snowmachining. Her doctor told her she could so long as she doesn’t take any jumps or go out high-marking. Both were fine with her, she said, until he made a third request: could she please try to keep her speed down?

“I said two of the three I can promise,” Tuk said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.