January 28, 1998
Cancer survivors hold events to aid friend's leukemia battle
By Eric Dick
Herald editor
Cancer - which without reason can suddenly swarm and destroy a life - bonds its survivors. They rejoice together, having stepped on Death's door and slammed it in his face.
Survivors endure. Sometimes the cancer stricken overcome the insidious disease. Sometimes a family member falls, but the family pulls through and lives on. Both forevermore remember the hardship they endured to survive.
Carol Bowman survived cancer. Mary Ballew survived the death of her father from cancer.
Keith Ferguson now faces it, and Bowman and Ballew want to help out.
Ferguson, an Interlochen resident, was diagnosed in September with leukemia, a cancer that attacks blood-forming organs such as bone marrow and the lymph nodes. He is undergoing chemotherapy now and is scheduled for a bone marrow transplant in Ann Arbor. He is expected to survive, but the yearlong recovery of his immune system could leave the landscape architect out of work indefinitely.
Insurance will pay much of his medical expenses but lost wages is another matter.
To help out, Bowman and Ballew have organized community fund-raising events. Bowman's snowball softball tournament gets under way Feb. 7 at Green Lake Township Memorial Park. Cost is $10 per player. Ballew's spaghetti dinner and silent auction takes place from 12 to 3 p.m. Sunday at the American Legion Hall on Hastings Street. Cost is $5 for adults, $2.50 for children 10 and younger.
Bowman, whose son Christopher attends Interlochen Community School with Ferguson's son Kyle, said she wanted to support the Ferguson family as it copes during a stressful time of unknowns.
"I think to myself, it could have been me; because it could have been," said Bowman, a high school security guard who survived breast cancer last year. "Because in the beginning states of something like this, you have no idea how severe it is, how long it will take, whether you'll live or die.
"It's important that people know you care when you're at your worst."
Ballew, who works with Ferguson's wife, Lisa, at Elmer's Crane & Dozer, just wanted to offer a hand, too.
"If I can help someone else, you know, that's what I want to do," she said. "I know it's a tremendous emotional not to mention financial burden all the way around."
Indeed, with Keith recovering for up to a year, money will be tight at the Ferguson home. Keith and Lisa have three children to support: a 12-year-old girl and two boys, 11 and 6.
But the community fund-raisers have lifted the family's spirits. "Overwhelmed, really, it's just incredible. And it just keeps growing. People are really generous," Lisa Ferguson said, then paused. "I don't know, I don't know how to put it into words, I guess.
"It's making a big difference in how he's recovering."
For more information on Sunday's spaghetti dinner, call Mary Ballew at 943-5701 or 946-7487. For more information on the snowball softball game Feb. 7, call Carol Bowman at 263-7863.