Woman’s life shaped by family’s cancer

To say that cancer has touched Mary Anne Ruddis is like saying Hurricane Katrina touched New Orleans. In a few short years the disease claimed her husband, daughter and son.

However, the executive director of Candlelighters of the Inland Northwest doesn’t waste time on self-pity. The bulletin board in her office at Sacred Heart Medical Center Children’s Hospital is covered with photos. Snapshots of kids battling cancer, and kids who’ve succumbed, keep her company as she works.

Those photos also include pictures of her daughter, Nikki, and her son, Michael. In 1986 when Nikki was 16 months old, Ruddis noticed a bump on the back of her baby’s arm. The bump didn’t go away; in fact, it got bigger. Her pediatrician referred the family to Children’s Hospital of Orange County. Ruddis said, “Life was never the same again.”

Surgery revealed Nikki had a very aggressive cancer. The best course of treatment was high-dose chemotherapy. Ruddis, three months pregnant and working full-time, learned what she calls a “new normal.” For two years the family’s life revolved around hospital stays and doctor visits.

Nikki finished treatment in 1988 and joined her baby brother, Michael, at home. A few months later a second son, Matthew, was born. Four happy and healthy years followed.

But one night, Ruddis’ husband, Kerry, hired a baby sitter and took his wife out to dinner. He looked at her across the table and said, “I have to tell you something.” Other wives may have imagined all kinds of scenarios to fill that long pause. Not Ruddis. As she recalled that night, her eyes welled with tears. “I just knew,” she said.

Kerry Ruddis had a bump on his upper leg. He was diagnosed with cancer. The family embarked on a horribly familiar routine, as physicians battled the disease with chemotherapy, radiation and eventually surgery.

One year after her husband’s diagnosis the unthinkable happened. Nikki got sick again.

This time it was leukemia. Her cancer was a direct result of the chemo that had eradicated the earlier sarcoma.

As she reflected on this painful time, Ruddis fiddled with a paper clip at her desk. With hands that sometimes trembled, she unbent the metal twists while she talked. “Everywhere I was at, I felt like I should be some place else. My husband was dying, my daughter was ill and I had two young boys who needed their mother.”

On Easter Sunday 1994, her 36-year-old husband died. Ruddis said there were times she just wanted to pull the sheets over her head and feel sorry for herself. But she didn’t have that luxury. “My husband died, but my daughter was terminal,” she said. “I had no time to mourn.”

Nikki was fading fast and they were running out of options. When Ruddis and the doctors met to discuss experimental treatment, she looked at her daughter and asked, “Nikki, What do you want to do?”

As Ruddis remembers her daughter’s reply, tears spilled from her brimming eyes. “Nikki said, ‘Mom, I just want to be a kid.’ ”

Ruddis sat silently for a moment. Clearing her throat, she continued, “I often say I really learned how to live during that time.” She and Nikki took memorable trips to San Francisco and Ohio. Nikki died in August 1994, four months after her father’s death. She was 9 years old.

At that time, Ruddis said she embraced the concept of a grand design – that everything happens for a reason – that there’s a bigger picture we don’t see.

She visited her brother in Spokane and fell in love with the city. Ruddis decided a fresh start was just what she, Michael and Matthew needed. They settled in to their new home and life resumed normalcy.

That normalcy was shattered by a call from Michael’s fourth-grade teacher. Suddenly, Michael, a top reader in third grade, was struggling. Ruddis sat down with him at home. Amazingly, her bright child seemed unable to read or even recognize letters any more. Once again, Ruddis said, “I knew.”

Tests revealed he had a brain tumor. “When Michael was diagnosed it nearly killed me,” she said. The spiritual framework she’d pieced together, collapsed.

Michael died in September 1999. He was 12 years old.

Ruddis said, “Nikki taught me how to live. Michael taught me how to live with mystery.” There was no way for her to explain his death. No way to make sense of it.

And yet it was at this time that Ruddis was introduced to Candlelighters. “They contacted me at the hospital, “she recalled. Eight years later she became the organization’s executive director. “The dark night of the soul I went through with Michael’s diagnosis and death was very profound. I’ve come away from it with the tools to be able to keep giving, and to be there for others.”

Ruddis is passionate about the mission of Candlelighters. The group meets practical needs for patients and families dealing with cancer. They provide parking vouchers, gasoline and grocery cards, and even snack baskets for parents waiting for a child in treatment.

In addition, Candlelighters sponsors support groups, including a new one launched in the Tri-Cities. With help from the Rypien Foundation, the organization provides quality travel bags for kids to pack for hospital visits. The bags include a portable DVD player, a blanket, a stuffed animal and other goodies.

Unfortunately, the number of children who need those bags continues to grow. In their recent newsletter, Candlelighters welcomed new members, including a 4-year-old from Okanogan, an infant from Coeur d’Alene, and a preschooler from Sandpoint.

As Ruddis oversees this volunteer organization, she is thankful for Matthew, her robust 19-year-old son. “The pain of this life is worth every bit of joy,” she said. “I believe that our capacity for joy is equal to our capacity for sorrow.”

She feels we are all shaped by our sorrows. “We can choose if we are going to be better or worse off because of them,” she said. “I’ve chosen to be better.”