By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1
On a sunny November day, a teary-eyed Lori Wood, clad in her exquisite wedding dress, walked slowly down the aisle to her soon-to-be husband Matt.
Little could they know that in roughly two-and-a-half decades later Matt would be cupping Lori’s face in his hands telling her he meant the vows he took on that day. He was going to stay with her “for better or worse, for richer or poorer and in sickness and in health.”
“Nobody wants to have to prove their love to their wife this way, but I think she finally knows how much I loved her from the very beginning,” Matt said. “To this day, I don’t feel like I deserve her. She’s just the best woman.”
Lori was diagnosed with Leiomyosarcoma, a rare and aggressive cancer that grows on the smooth muscles like those found in the stomach, bladder, intestines and blood vessels, on Jan. 17, 2022. According to Matt this cancer affects less than 5 percent of the U.S. population. A year prior she had a hysterectomy that revealed the soon-to-be tumor, but, as she didn’t have any symptoms, she didn’t follow up on it. In September she started experiencing pain in her lower back but she thought it was merely a pulled muscle she sustained during her many hours of lifting heavy boxes and unloading trucks at her job at IGA.
This pain went on for many months, during which time she received half a dozen steroid shots in an effort to alleviate it. Eventually, in December, Lori started losing feeling in her legs. After getting several MRIs and going to an orthopedic specialist in Glasgow, she woke up on that fateful Jan. 17 day in terrible pain.
“I had been sleeping in a recliner for probably a month and a half because I couldn’t lay down in the bed,” Lori said. “I woke up that morning and I was in excruciating pain. I called my husband in the bedroom and I said ‘You’ve got to take me to the hospital right now.’”
Matt, along with her oldest son, “practically carried her” to their truck and set off in a hurry for Bowling Green, which was the nearest large hospital Lori had not been to. During the roughly hour-and-a-half journey to the city, Lori said she could “tell something was wrong.” By the time they arrived in Bowling Green the numbness in her legs inhibited her from getting out of the truck.
It was at this hospital that Lori received confirmation of her condition.
“Within 20 minutes they knew that I had cancer and I was flown to Norton’s in Louisville,” Lori said. “When I got up there they diagnosed me with Leiomyosarcoma, which is a type of cancer there is no cure for.”
They discovered she had a tumor wrapped around her spine to such a degree that it had crushed some of her vertebrates, exposing the nerves in the spine.
“That scared me to death,” Lori said.
“It was so close to her lungs and heart [and] that tumor had grown so much, it was about the size of a baseball at the base of her neck,” Matt added.
The doctors, after debating for several days as to the next step, performed surgery to remove part of the tumor wrapped around her spine. Due to how tightly it was wound and its proximity to vital organs, they just removed enough to keep her from being paralyzed.
When leaving the hospital Lori was given six months to live — thankfully, she said, that was not accurate as it will be two years in January — Matt recalls the spinal doctor saying, since Lori’s cancer caused a “non-traumatic spine injury,” it was a “coin toss” as to whether the nerves would repair themselves.
She went through physical therapy, essentially to relearn how to walk, and rounds of chemotherapy after leaving the hospital. She remembers returning home very depressed thinking of the life, and goals, she would no longer be able to obtain and “waiting to die.” Even now, Lori said there are some television shows she can’t watch and music she can’t listen to because it reminds her of a time before January 2022, a time when she dreamed of retiring, of playing with her grandchildren.
Lori said her faith, her family and her community helped her greatly in the year after her diagnosis and, in many ways, change her and Matt’s outlook on life in general.
“I really think that is what has gotten me through,” she said.
Being a devout and life-long Christian, and member of the Burkesville Baptist Church, she said she initially got very angry with God for giving her this rare diagnosis.
“I blamed God for doing this to me; I thought ‘how can you do this to me? I’ve always tried to be a good person to everybody,” Lori said. “And I blamed him a lot for this.”
While in physical therapy her nephew-in-law asked her if she would like to pray with him. She was hesitant at first, still being angry, but agreed and began praying with him over the phone at 9 p.m. every night. Lori said this consistent prayer strengthened her faith and changed her mindset from anger to acceptance that comes from “knowing where she’ll go.”
“I decided I was going to give God a second chance,” Lori said.
“I was a nervous wreck. I was scared. I cried a lot and now it’s just not that way,” Lori said. “I just feel like he’s going to take care of me one way or another and I’m going to be okay regardless.”
Matt recalled times when Lori would sit and pray for the strength to do simple daily tasks. Lori said the power of prayer has been one of the “biggest parts” of her journey; the other being her family, her husband and three sons. She recounts that one of her first thoughts after her diagnosis was of her family.
“My biggest fear in all of this is leaving my family,” Wood said. “I don’t fear dying, per se, I just fear losing my family and not having them with me.”
She said all of her family is a tight-knit group; the kind of family that has big get-togethers on holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. Ever since Lori came back to their home, and they set up a bed in the living room for her, she said her oldest son would come ever Thursday, lay on the living room couch, and watch their shows together. She remembers Matt facetiming her during the past year while at their son’s many sporting events so she “could be there and support him” even though she could not make it to the stands herself.
While, Lori said, all of her family was supportive and helpful to her, she pointed especially to her husband, who has been a “rock” for her to stand on the past 24 years of their marriage.
“I don’t know what I would have done without my husband,” Wood said. “He has been my total rock, my everything. A lot of his people at work give him vacation time. He left me one day while I was in the hospital and that was to come home and get the car to be able to drive me back home. He was there with me every minute.”
The physical therapist actually had a small bed set up for Matt at a time when visitation was limited due to the pandemic so he could be close to Lori and help her while she did her exercises. Even now that she is back home and can do some tasks unassisted, Lori said, he still takes time from his work at the Burkesville Water Department to check up on her “a couple times a day.”
“He has been my everything, nobody could ever love this man like I do,” Wood said. “He has been there for me every step of the way. We’ve cried together, we’ve prayed together, he’s just been there for me and I could not ask for a better person to spend the rest of my life with.”
Issues rarely stay confined to the few that they involve, and Lori’s case is no different. Lori and Matt both agree they have been surprised at the impact a single person can have on a community.
“We didn’t understand how much this community really cares about us,” Matt said. “It’s a small town and we know everybody[and they] really showed up for us.”
“The whole community came together for me,” Lori added.
For example, IGA in Albany, Lori said, had a bake sale for her — though they said there were some instances where people donated money and didn’t take anything — which raised almost $4,000 and even to this day, nearly two years later, Matt emphasized, that store sign still reads “Pray for Lori Wood.”
“The outpouring of love in the community just amazes me,” Lori said.
“There are people out there that love my wife as much as I do, and I didn’t think that was possible,” Matt added with amazement in his voice.
Their kids got gift cards for free meals at certain restaurants, haircuts became free for a while, lots of well wishing text messages — sometimes even from people Matt didn’t know — flooded their phones, car loads of groceries were delivered and, Matt said, they even had anonymous community members pay for five months of their house payment and their utility bills.
While not solely about money, Matt and Lori stressed, it was “nice not to worry about those things” while they got back on their feet. Just as important, they both agreed, were the community prayers; the goodness of people, like their neighbors, who still bring them food.
“It’s really incredible,” Matt said. “She had people praying for her from Texas to Maryland based on people that knew other people from Albany and Burkesville.”
Matt said this whole ordeal has given him a new appreciation for the kindness of people.
“This has changed my attitude towards people,” Matt said. “It honestly has because like I said you just ride through life thinking people are living their own lives not necessarily caring about you but then you realize. if you’re a good person…, people recognize that and they care.”
By telling her story, Lori hopes other people will be comforted knowing they are not alone. Matt agrees and said one of the biggest takeaways was the comradery that people showed toward one another.
“I hope this helps people in whatever way it can,” Matt said.
“Deep down people care. There is humanity out there that cares about you. No matter how you feel…know that there’s people that care about you, love you,” he added.
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CARE Power Hour is an event to celebrate cancer survivors, their families, caregivers, providers, and friends. The lavender ribbon is a general symbol of awareness for all cancers. It serves as a unifying symbol, promoting empathy and support for anyone affected by cancer regardless of the specific type. Proceeds from CARE Power Hour directly benefit Community Medical Care’s Breaking Barriers to Care Program, which provides assistance to cancer patients for the most common barriers to care such as transportation and supplemental nutrition. Register to attend and purchase tickets online at tjregionalhealth.org/carepowerhour.
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