Dodging Dandelions: A Memoir of Love, Loss and Acceptance

'Dodging Dandelions'

“You can do nothing, you can dig them out or you can use chemicals to eliminate them. But chances are, as time goes by, more dandelions will appear.”

That’s what author Ron Richards, and his wife Sara, were told by her oncologist as they dealt with the recurrence of her breast cancer. But, as difficult as dealing with her significant illness was, it was only one of a number of difficult cir***stances the family faced as they played out their life journey.

The story is a feelings-filled, male perspective of an ordinary family’s focus on remaining positive despite, at times, seemingly insurmountable challenges that revolve around cancer and the struggles that come with trying to manage a child who is severely mentally ill.

In the opening chapters, the couple deals with Sara’s breast cancer diagnosis when she was just 30 years old. After a six-year remission, the disease re-appears and causes another round of treatments. That occurs as their adopted daughter is only a year old and it’s becoming apparent she has significant behavioral/emotional issues.

As their daughter ages, her behavior becomes increasingly abnormal and by the time she turns seven, she is hospitalized and placed on a significant regime of psychiatric meds. As time p*****, her behavior continues to deteriorate and she ends up hospitalized in locked, psychiatric facilities for 36 of the final 42 months of her mother's life.

After her first recurrence, Sara’s cancer stays in remission for nearly 11 years before the disease returns with a vengeance, tumors filling her liver to the point that she may not survive. An intense round of chemotherapy saves her life.

Just as the eight months of chemo are coming to a close - and the couple is looking forward to time away from cancer - a coincidental ultrasound finds that Ron has a cancerous tumor in his left kidney. The disease is treated surgically and his left kidney is removed. After he recovers, the couple enjoys a few months respite from the disease but is jolted back to the cancer world when a scan shows Sara has tumors in her brain.

As he considers their situation, Ron decides to change careers to serve as Sara’s primary caregiver. While that allows him to be with his failing wife on a daily basis the final 3+ years of her life, the reality is that his new career provides only a fraction of their previous income. The resulting financial strain compounds the stresses of Sara’s cancer in ways the couple could have never imagined. As this is happening, their daughter remains locked away in psychiatric care and the family wrestles with the anguish of dealing with a child who has severe mental illness.

Months pass and Sara has additional treatments and procedures and finally ends up having surgery to remove the most troublesome tumor in her brain. The surgery seemingly goes well but causes her to lose her swallowing function, resulting in Ron feeding her four times a day through a stomach tube for the final 11 months of her life.

Through it all, Sara never wavers in her positivity and commitment to ‘be the best patient I can be.’ She – and the family – remains positive to the end. As her 22-plus-year breast cancer battle comes quietly to a close, the family plans and conducts a memorial service that proves a testament to the lives she touched as more than 300 people fill the church sanctuary for a standing-room-only service.

Throughout the book, Richards offers a genuine and honest husband’s point-of-view that is filled with feeling and emotion on a level rarely seen from a male perspective. He openly shares the lessons he learned as he navigated his way through the disbelief, fear, anger, sadness and uncertainty he faced time and again as his wife was losing her battle with cancer. He regularly recounts the many day-to-day issues that come with facing cancer and losing, in so many ways, a spouse. Ultimately, he remains upbeat and positive as he keeps the family together and they then move forward in their lives.

Reader reviews on Amazon use words such as “Amazing,” “Heartfelt,” “Eloquent,” “Inspirational,” and “Great Read,” and “I was hooked . . . it was hard to put down.”

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