4. Down the Road

   By January 1991 I was "finished" with treatment. The side effects would linger for a couple of months. Gradually the vomiting and diarrhea would fade and stop. I still would not fell "good" for 6 months or so. I was extremely tired, both physically and mentally. The basketball season finally came to an end. I don't remember much of it. A few years later I would have to look the season up in the school yearbook to get my coaching record, and it was like learning about the season for the first time.

   Needless to say I took it easy the rest of March. April track started, but it is a low stress, low work sport to coach. I know the kids did not get as good of a job as I was capable of, but by this point I was ready to get to summer and rest.

    Financially we took huge hits. Cancer affects more than just your health.  All the traveling caused us to max out the credit cards. Medical bills mounted. Our insurance was okay, but we were still left with a large chunk. Money was extremely tight, and again, we did not seek any additional help. Matters got worse at the end of the school year. Carol's job was cut because of funding, and there were controversies about my coaching. I wanted to drop basketball and keep coaching football and track. The school board wanted me to coach football and basketball. It was the last straw. I resigned. We decided we could live in poverty somewhere else, and somewhere closer to a hospital and cancer center. So in June we packed up and split time between my parents house in Great Falls, Montana, and Carol's folk's in Stevensville, Montana. Of course we had to use what money we had left to keep paying the insurance from the school. I did not want to be without any insurance should the cancer come back.

   So, unemployed and broke, we ended up in Great Falls after the summer. Carol got a job as a secretary. I substitute taught and coached. We struggled, which eventually lead to bankruptcy. Looking back I still think we did what we had to. I don't think physically or mentally I could have stayed where we were.

   Rick (age 5) was now ready for kindergarten. Jessica (age 2) spent the days with me. I don't know if I could have worked in the fall, I was so burnt out. Eventually I decided I would go back to school. Of course this decision would set us back farther financially.

     In January I began graduate school. Took out a big school loan (which I might get paid off someday), and began courses through Northern Montana College. The school was actually in Havre (110 miles), but they had an outreach center in Great Falls. I only had to go to Havre for one class (once a week for a semester). I earned my masters degree in Counseling and Development in three semesters. I took a lot of classes. They were all night courses, 4 days a week, 6-10 pm. I would stay home with Jessica and study, coach in the afternoon and take classes at night. It was a busy time, but not stressful (as far as the job).

    I choose counseling for a couple of reasons. First, I liked the field of psychology. I thought being a counselor would be a good job. Also in my coaching and teaching I had been doing a lot of counseling with students, and figured maybe I should get the degree and know I was doing it right. Finally, I thought maybe the courses would help me with the anxiety I was dealing with...you know, "physician heal thyself". Didn't work.

   Of course there was still the "fear". I worried constantly about a reoccurrence. If I got a large pimple I would worry the lump was a tumor. The anxiety only worsened. I worried about anything health related. My father had a heart attack that same year at age 54. So now I worried about that. Looking back they were a combination of a hietal hernia and panic attacks. A couple of times I ended up in the hospital. I kept on going.

   One day that fall a man in Great Falls died of the hantivirus, which is carried by mice. Our house (a little dump), was infested with mice. They would crawl up by the television and look at us when we were watching television. I hated them. Of course the day the article came out in the paper about the death from the hantivirus, I woke up with the worst flu I had had in quite some time. I was now convinced I was going to contract this disease as well (I still get phobic about mice).

    I was still trying to be a "he-man", the macho guy that did not need any help. I struggled along for a couple of years before I finally got over that. It would not be until 1994, four years later, that I was finally directed to seek some mental help as well as physical help. Numerous times I had panic attacks. During the summers for three years I ran a trial crew for the forest service. We often worked in the back country. Several times I thought I was dying, from heart attacks, hantivirus, cancer, or who knows what else. Eventually something would have to give. Looking back I know with a support group, some counseling, anything - I would have had a much easier time of it.

    For the 1994-1995 school year I got a job in Grass Range, Montana. Once again we were on the road.