Living With Fear: Son in Afghanistan is always on her mind

Nothing gnaws at Ann Meadows like having her only child serving in Afghanistan. Not even battling a life-threatening illness. A few days before her son, Robert, 23, was deployed to Afghanistan in April, Meadows learned that her breast cancer had returned.

"It was kind of a shocker," Meadows said of the diagnosis. "But it's been a piece of cake compared to this."

She watches the news every chance she gets and checks several Web sites daily, hunting for information about what is going on in Afghanistan. Her cell phone is always charged and within reach.

"You live with this fear," she said. "When you're not expecting company, and you hear a knock at the door, you freeze up."

Doctors first discovered cancer in Meadows' left breast during a mammogram in October 2004. She underwent a lumpectomy followed by several radiation treatments. Robert, a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, came home for four days to be with her.

During a checkup six months later, tests revealed a suspicious area on her breast, a likely indication that the cancer had returned.

Robert has always been a source of strength for his mother, who is divorced and lives alone.

"He is the one person I can count on," Meadows said. "Our love is unconditional."

But Meadows decided to shield him from her illness. He was leaving for Afghanistan in four days, and she wanted him to focus on his safety, not her disease.

She traveled to Fort Bragg to say goodbye to Robert, who will be deployed for a year. That farewell was much more difficult than learning about the cancer's reappearance.

"It didn't hit me until I saw my child walk up to me with a huge rifle strapped to him," Meadows said. "When you send them off to college or to camp, you can get to them. I don't care how old your child is, you want to protect him. You finally feel helpless, and you realize that you can't protect them. It's in God's hands, and you hope that he brings him home safely."

A few weeks later, Meadows underwent a double mastectomy at Forsyth Medical Center. While recovering in the hospital, she began to hemorrhage, and her blood level dropped. Meadows decided that she had kept her secret from Robert long enough. She thought about all those times that she told her parents to be honest with her about their health.

The next time he called, Meadows told him about her surgery.

"He was peeved at me, but at that point, I knew I was OK," she said.

Meadows found support from friends and other family members. She is close to her sister, Julie Hancock, and she has many good friends at Alliance Display and Packaging, where she works in the accounting department.

Michelle Scicli is one of those friends. Scicli's son, Chris, served in Iraq for nine months. She has talked with Meadows about what it's like to have a child in a war zone.

"It's huge. It's always on her mind," Scicli said. "She keeps her faith and takes one day at a time. That's what I told her. Look at today and look forward to the next phone call and just try to get through it."

Robert volunteered to take his two-week leave in June so that he could be with his mother during her sick leave. Two-week leaves are rotated among the soldiers. Robert, who is single, took the first leave offered so that soldiers with spouses and children could be home closer to the holidays - and so that he could be with his mother.

She loved seeing him again.

"I found myself counting the days," she said.

Meadows took him back to Fort Bragg on July 4. Because he took his leave so early, Meadows will probably not see her son until next spring.

Her house is filled with photographs of Robert, including one in which he is wearing his dress uniform and leaning against her right shoulder. Meadows writes in a journal every time she speaks with Robert, which is about once a week. It includes entries about what she was thinking on his birthday and how she felt the day she took him back to Fort Bragg. She plans to give him the journal upon his return.

A picture of him attached to a yellow ribbon stays pinned to her clothing.

She also wears a necklace that he gave her after he graduated from airborne school. The necklace has six hearts - one heart represents each letter in the word "mother."

"That stays on, too," Meadows said.

On a wall near the door hangs a small poster decorated with pink ribbons that includes get-well wishes from her co-workers. A few days after Robert returned to Afghanistan, Meadows was reading comments on the poster and noticed one from her son that read: "UR Awesome, I Love U, PFC Meadows."

Meadows, who is now cancer-free, has checkups every three months.

"My health issues were nothing," she said. "I did fine through that. I wasn't really scared. My mind was more on him, and it stays on him most of the time."

• Lisa O'Donnell can be reached at 727-7420 or at lo'donnell@wsjournal.com