Wayne's Story

 

as told by his wife, Jean

 

Wayne was born in NC., the third child of seven children and the first of identical twins.  He was raised on various farms in the area as his father was a tenant farmer. He quit school at sixteen to go to work.  He worked in construction and then worked for two different printing companies, working on the presses. He then worked for a carpet cleaning company for seven years, after which he worked as a diesel mechanic for two different trash companies for over twenty five years.

In April of 2002 he became sick and went to the doctor who told him he had a tumor in his stomach area and he sent him to the hospital.  After tests, he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.  After ten chemo treatments and twenty days of radiation, he had another tumor appear. He received more chemo and has been on antibody treatments for three years. 

 In September, 2006, his cancer went into remission and with the antibody treatments every three months, he is still cancer free, but all of the treatments has caused damage to his heart and he now has congestive heart failure, which is being treated. 

The tumors are still in the abdominal area, dormant, but still cause a lot of pain.  We have been married 39 years, have one daughter, one son in law, two granddaughters and one grandson.

His favorite colors are blue, red and green. He enjoys spending all the time he can with his grandchildren. He also still tinkers around doing some mechanic work.