Margaret Turner

Slater, Missouri

I had cancer – I was one of the lucky ones. I didn’t have to have treatments. My husband J.D. wasn’t so lucky. When he was diagnosed with cancer, he had to have 38 radiation treatments and we had to drive to Columbia from Slater and back for every one. BY the end of the week, we were both worn out. On the day that he went in for his last treatment – the 38^th one – the weather turned bad. On out way home, we ran into ice. The closer we got to Slater, the worse the roads became. I did a lot of praying on the way home. It took me two hours and 20 minutes to drive from Columbia to Slater that day.

I remember telling my husband, “If only Marshall had a cancer treatment center, we wouldn’t be in this mess.” So many times in the past, since then, I have thought about how wonderful it would be to have a cancer center at Fitzgibbon Hospital.

People who have never had cancer, or who have never had someone in their family who has suffered with cancer, do not realize what a hardship it is until they have to go through it themselves. It seems that almost every week or so I hear about someone in our area who has been diagnosed with cancer. I know from experience that it would be so much easier on the patient and the ones that take them for treatments to travel 13 miles instead of 60.

None of us know when cancer might hit next. It could be you. We just never know.

That’s why I strongly support the current capital campaign for a cancer treatment center at Fitzgibbon Hospital in Marshall. A few people cannot do this by themselves. If all the communities around will help, it can be a reality.

I recently attended a community forum in Slater about the Community Cancer Center being proposed, and they group presented a wealth of information for those who may not know much about the project. I highly recommend that if these meetings continue, everyone who can should attend.

If everyone in the communities that will be served by this treatment center would give – even if they only gave $1 or $5 or $10 or even $25 or more – the campaign would soon raise the $4 million needed to build the center. We would then have a treatment center closer than Columbia or Sedalia. And that’s something we really need.

Please give, no matter how much or how little.