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'Happy Every Day'
Faced with a dire diagnosis, man plans, survives, thrives
Journal Photo by Lauren Carroll
Doug Cherry prepares to give himself an injection at his home. Despite his deteriorating health, he has chosen to have an optimistic outlook and enjoy life.
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Published: January 4, 2009
Updated: 01/04/2009 12:05 am
If a doctor's prediction had been right, Doug Cherry would have died more than a year and a half ago. But he's still with us -- and so is his positive attitude.
"You can be sad that you're going to die tomorrow or you can be happy for the last 74 years," he said. "I'm happy every day that I get up and I'm still alive.... I live every day as best I can and as full as I can."
His sense of humor is still intact, too. In acknowledging the truism that death could come to anyone at any moment, Cherry laughed. "I've got a better shot at it."
Cherry has congestive heart failure, which means that his heart is unable to pump his blood with enough force to circulate through his body properly. Even relatively minor exertions can be beyond him.
"Everybody dies a different way and my death has been very, very slow," Cherry said.
His doctor told him in November 2006 that he probably had two to six months to live, and suggested that Cherry sign up with Hospice & Palliative CareCenter of Winston-Salem. He did, and a hospice nurse and a hospice doctor regularly visit his home in the western part of Winston-Salem.
Every now and then, Cherry gets a reminder of just how fragile life is.
In his chest is a combination pacemaker/defibrillator that can shock his heart when necessary. When it goes off, Cherry said, it feels like a bolt of lightning going through your chest.
"It jolts you," he said.
It went off a couple of months back, taking him by surprise, he said, because he wasn't exerting himself.
"I was sitting at the table finishing a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich," he said. "I was doing nothing."
He took to his bed to rest for an hour or so and then went on to the next thing.
"Moved on with my life," he said.
In Winston-Salem since 2003
Cherry spent most of his life in upstate New York. He moved to Winston-Salem in 2003 at the urging of his daughter, Melanie Cherry-Conklin, 31, who lives here with her husband, Joe. As it happens, Cherry-Conklin got a job with Hospice as the vice president of the Kate B. Reynolds Hospice Home after her father started using hospice services.
Cherry, who is separated from his wife, also has two sons. He lives with his 6-year-old Australian cattle dog, Hudson. Cherry-Conklin said that her father seems more worried about what will happen to Hudson than he is about himself.
His daughter tries to stop by every day. On days that circumstances make that difficult, her husband stops in. Although Cherry had to stop driving and spends much of his time at home, his daughter and son-in-law make sure to take him out regularly for excursions. Cherry used a walker until six months ago when the deterioration in his health forced him to switch to an electric scooter.
He has long enjoyed ham radio, and he has set up his computer so that he can work the radio from bed if he wants to. He also has diabetes, so he watches what he eats.
"My life is pretty simple, really," he said.
Although his illness makes moving about difficult, just sitting and talking, Cherry can be quite vigorous. During two interviews, he readily offered opinions on all sorts of topics, and he seemed quite chipper.
"I believe in the power of positive thinking," he said. "Life is filled with good things and bad things, and we make the best of it."
Because his heart is so weak, fluid builds up in his body. Every three days, he has to take pills and give himself a shot to purge the fluid. It takes about 40 hours to recover, so some days are better than others.
His daughter calls several times a day. If he doesn't answer, she reminds herself that he might be in the shower and gives him some time before calling back. She knows that, one day, there might be another reason he doesn't answer.
"She knows I am dying," Cherry said. "It's just a matter of when."
"I don't think about him dying a lot," Cherry-Conklin said. "I am more focused on the time we have together, and we take it day-to-day. I don't deny it's coming, obviously, but there's nothing I can do about it."
A while back, someone gave her a book called A Father's Legacy that lists questions to ask your father and provides space to write the answers. She has found it a good tool, and, from time to time, she asks her father a question such as "What would be the biggest advice you would give me as a parent?"
With someone else around, Cherry's jokester side came out, and he claimed that his answer had been, "don't have kids."
The answers he had actually given her about being a parent, though, included thoughts about not being able to predict "the unimaginable happiness, fun and joy that kids would bring to my life."
"I can't imagine how my life would have been if I hadn't had children,'' his answer continued. "It matters most to me and especially now in my life."
Heart problems for 30 years
Cherry has been living with heart troubles for more than 30 years.
Cherry-Conklin remembers being an 11-year-old fifth-grader when doctors told her father that he should retire because of his heart. She still remembers not only the date -- Oct. 13, 1995 -- but also the day of the week -- Friday -- that he had a five-way heart bypass.
"You dad is your dad," she said.
For many years, Cherry had a pacemaker to regulate his heartbeat. Three years ago, that was replaced with the pacemaker/defibrillator. A heart transplant was not a viable option. Along with the blockages around his heart, Cherry has had to deal with blockages elsewhere.
Before the heart bypass operation, he had a bypass operation in his right leg. Six years ago, a blood clot in his right leg led to severe damage in the leg. In order to avoid kidney damage and the need for dialysis, doctors recommended that it be amputated above the knee.
"That changed my life dramatically," Cherry said.
Not long after he left the hospital, he fell.
"I fell on my stump and busted it open," he said. "That was the worst pain I ever had. It's been a slow deterioration since then."
Cherry grew up in Port Jervis, a port and railroad town situated at the intersection of the Neversink and Delaware rivers. The states of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania meet there.
His grandfather worked for the railroad. His father, Franklin, was a carpenter and contractor, and Cherry worked for him before going off to college for two years. He and his father built a house for his younger sister, Diane Archer, and she lived in it for more than 50 years.
Cherry spent two years in the Army -- much of that time serving in Germany. He spent seven years finishing his degree at night. After earning a teaching certificate, he taught building trades at such community colleges as the occupational and education center in Goshen, N.Y., that serves Orange and Ulster counties. He kept horses for years, and, for eight years, he gave up teaching to run a dairy farm.
"I used to work eight days a week for most of my life," he said.
"He was always very on-the-go," Cherry-Conklin said.
Cherry said he has seen a lot of people let their lives get sidetracked by negativity. He's not going to let his health troubles make him one of them.
"It's very, very important how you live life," he said. "Enjoy it."
■ Kim Underwood can be reached at 727-7389 or at kunderwood@wsjournal.com.
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