Friends eager to lend a hand
Tamara Wells didn’t have to convince business owners to buy her benefit tickets even though they’d been hit up by every cause imaginable.
“As soon as I told them the tickets were for Anna Meyer, they pulled out their money,” Tamara says, grinning. She owns Tamara’s Hair Studio in Hayden. “Everyone loves Anna.”
Which is good, because Anna, 39, needs the support right now. Cancer spreads in her like morning glory in a garden. Doctors at Kootenai Medical Center eradicate a tumor in one of her organs and a new tumor sprouts in a different organ. They’re scrambling now to find the “herbicide” that works for Anna. But her cancer is as stubbornly insistent on taking over as the frustrating morning glory.
“It’s hard to see someone hit so many times,” says Evelyn Bevacqua. She works in marketing and sales with Anna at the Coeur d’Alene Press. “She worked so hard for so many years and now her life has just stopped. But she has such faith and spirit. She’s a huge fighter.”
The spirit shows in Anna’s blue eyes. Despite chemotherapy, life in a hospital bed at KMC and distance from her 9-year-old son, Jacob, she smiles and chats with her husband, Marshall, as if they’re on a lunch date. She’s not shy to discuss cancer’s three-year assault on her; she wants people to know it can happen to anyone.
“You have to live every day to the fullest because you never know when you’ll wake up at 11:30 at night and everything’s changed,” she says.
Anna was 37 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Cancer was rampant in her family, and she expected to confront it herself someday. But not at 37. A mastectomy and chemotherapy seemed to eradicate the cancer.
Anna returned to work for two years and doted on Jacob. Premature birth, then spinal meningitis had stolen his ability to walk and hear. He doesn’t see well and speaks little. Spokane’s Sacred Heart Medical Center is a common destination for the Meyers.
Last Christmas, a nasty flu hit Anna. She coughed so hard she fractured a rib. A chest X-ray showed the broken rib and two tumors in her lungs.
“Your guts just drop,” she says, remembering the moment she heard the news.
Marshall stayed by her side through chemotherapy, then surgery in March to remove the lower lobe of her right lung. He was aching with Anna but determined to offer her strength.
It grew harder two months later when Anna’s numb left arm woke her at 11:30 p.m.
“It felt like it was asleep,” she says. “It was so weird.”
By the time she woke Marshall, her left leg was numb. She fell to the floor as her left side deadened. Marshall called 911. Doctors found three tumors on the right side of her brain. They removed one and left a barely visible seam bisecting Anna’s scalp sideways. The other two tumors were inoperable but vanished after 20 days of radiation. New tumors sprouted on her liver and pelvic area.
Doctors studied a worldwide database for similar cases and found Avastin, a drug that stops the growth of blood vessels that nourish cancerous tissues. In February, the FDA approved use of the drug with chemotherapy to stop the spread of cancer of the colon or rectum.
Anna’s doctors decided to try Avastin to stop her breast cancer from spreading. She’s had three treatments – too few for solid results. Because the FDA hasn’t approved the drug’s use for breast cancer, her medical insurance doesn’t cover its use. It costs $3,800 for each treatment.
“We don’t have that kind of money,” Marshall says, chuckling helplessly at their predicament. Anna needs Avastin every other week indefinitely. Still, she and Marshall refuse to waste time grousing.
“We wake up thanking God we woke up this morning, and we go to bed thanking God we made it through another day,” Marshall says. “If more people lived their lives like today was their last day, the world would be a much better place.”
The Meyers’ positive approach to life has earned them a crowd of supporters willing to help in any way possible. Evelyn took Anna’s plight to the Northwest Women in Business Network. Evelyn and Diana Tuttle at American Mortgage in Coeur d’Alene started the support group for women in business 15 months ago. Eighty women have joined.
“I felt we had power in the group and could do something good,” Evelyn says. “I lost my mom to cancer when she was 49, so I have many feelings for Anna.”
Women in Business wasted no time. The group opened the Anna Meyer Recovery Fund. The women organized a benefit for Aug. 26 at Coeur d’Alene’s Z Spa with facials, massages, scalp treatments, manicures, pedicures and makeup consultations. They added a raffle for a used car, jewelry, art, massages and more. Evelyn will announce the car’s make and model Aug. 26. A $65 ticket will buy the holder two spa services the day of the benefit. Anna will receive $20 from each of the 150 tickets the group is selling.
Evelyn had grown close to Anna at work and chose to spill her worry about her friend on Tamara.
“I hurt and felt I needed a haircut from her,” Evelyn says.
She took along a flyer promoting the Aug. 26 benefit. Tamara saw Anna’s photo on the flyer and gasped.
“She was my advertising agent. I had no idea what had happened to her,” Tamara says. “I needed to help.”
Tamara immediately planned a benefit of her own for Aug. 21. Her hair studio will donate everything it earns from highlighting, haircuts and massages that day to Anna. Scruples, a hair color company which Tamara promotes, has donated all the hair color for the day. Coeur d’Alene Roasters is donating coffee and Greenbriar Inn, Tim’s Quality Meats and Tidyman’s are supplying hors d’oeuvres and pastries. Most donors were Anna’s clients and eager to help.
Anna and Marshall are overwhelmed by the benefits and know where the money raised will go.
“We’ll use it for Avastin,” Anna says. She admits any help with medical costs is a huge relief.
“We have to believe this will work. We have to stay positive,” Marshall says. “We have a lot of faith. That’s what’s getting us through.”