Local couple battles through cancer as a team

By Elizabeth Gabriel

(Updated: Thursday, May 15, 2008, 11:32 AM)

Bruce Triebold knew something was wrong when he and is wife, Deanna, went to breakfast on the last Sunday in May 1998. When he swallowed his pancakes, he had a horrible pain inside, along his breastbone.

"I thought it was a spasm or something," he said.

Then the same thing happened with the next bite.

He and Dee met Jan. 1, 1969 on a blind date when he was in the Navy stationed at Moffett Field in the San Francisco Bay area. They were married in 1974. They settled in the Bay Area and Bruce, an engineer, rose to a directorship in his company.

"We had a good life," Bruce said, "a nice home and two sons."

When he told his doctor about the pancake incident, he said he was told, "Oh, you probably have Barrett's."

Barrett's esophagus, according to www.mayoclinc.com, is "a condition in which the color and composition of the cells lining your lower esophagus change because of repeated exposure to stomach acid. This exposure to stomach acid is most often a result of long-term gastroesophageal reflux disease. But once Barrett's esophagus is diagnosed, there's a greater risk of developing esophageal cancer."

"I never had heartburn. I was fit and I exercised," Bruce said.

So he underwent a barium swallow and X-ray to see if there were any obstructions or "issues." Then he went on to work.

"When I got there, I had a message to call the doctor," Bruce said. "I thought 'Oh, no.' You don't have a test and have them call you. The doctor said he wanted to see me right away. I knew something was wrong."

He had an endoscopy, where they put a tube with a camera down the throat, and a biopsy.

That means cancer

When he and Dee talked to the doctor, the medical terms were flying fast. Dee understood them, but Bruce said there was one word he focused on.

"Then he (the doctor) said 'carcinoma.' Ding! That means cancer."

That was on June 8, 1998.

He was on the fast track with medication and radiation. He had a stage 3 lesion at the junction of his stomach and esophagus.

"Oh, my God," Bruce said, "this just doesn't happen. I was healthy and wealthy.

"The world changed. It's an illusion that you're guaranteed tomorrow."

Through all the treatment and all the emotions -- including depression -- Dee was there for Bruce.

"I told Dee, 'I'm glad it's me and not you because of the caregiver job, all the things you have to do,'" Bruce said. "I don't know if I would have survived without her. I call the caregiver the co-survivor."

He responded well to the radiation and the chemo, then surgery was scheduled.

"The surgeon was really cool," Bruce said. "Survival stats for esophageal cancer are about 14 percent. But he said don't look at the stats, you may be one (of the ones that make it)."

"They cut you open from stem to stern," Bruce said. "They sever the esophagus, pull out the stomach and make it into a tube, then pull it back through the diaphragm. I call it a stomaphagus. It's a straight pipe from the throat to the intestines. Your appetite goes away."

He was told to figure on a year of recovery, and it was two months before he felt "a little bit human."

"Depression after cancer treatment is common," he said. "It rattles your foundation. I was doing a lot of sleeping and felt like a zombie.

He tried to go back to work in February, but it was no good. He quit all the pressure and the long days and he and Dee moved to Oakhurst in 2002.

Bruce knew that he wanted to give back.

"I felt a debt," Bruce said. "So I started helping people going through it so they can be the next generation of supporters."

He has done online counseling with a specialty in esophageal cancer patients. The diagnosis is not that common. According to www.gitract.info, an estimated 14,250 people are diagnosed in the U.S. each year. Approximately 14,000 people die as a result of esophagus cancer each year.

When he hooked up with Relay for Life he became really involved.

"When you're a survivor," Bruce said, "you have an obligation to be visible. We're standing on the shoulders of the people who went before, for example, the people who went through the clinical trials."

Dee's turn

"When Bruce simmered down," Dee said, "I decided to work. Cosmetology suited her and she began to do beauty treatments. "I thought, 'There are women who have to drive to Fresno every day for cancer treatments.'"

Cancer patients have a lot of hair, skin and nail issues, so she started doing more and more to help them.

Look Good ... Feel Better was born. She teaches a skin and nail-care class and also provides wigs to people whose treatment has left them bald. Beauty companies donate the materials.

"They walk out looking beautiful," she said.

She was doing more caregiving again.

Last July, she went for a mammogram.

"I always thought I'd get a breast cancer diagnosis," Dee said.

Her paternal grandfather and father had cancer and her mother, who is still alive, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2000.

"When the doctor called, the kids were staying with us. I was in the kitchen with my son and I tried to take the call out of the room. I must have had a look on my face. He stared. 'Are you OK?' he asked."

I told him 'I have breast cancer,' and I started to cry. I cried for five minutes."

But she decided she was going to be fine, she'd do what she had to do.

"It put me into a new world of understanding," Dee said.

She had a lumpectomy and radiation, from which she is still having some issues.

"I will have to be ever on watch," she said, because of the aggressiveness of her kind of cancer.

At the relay

The Triebolds continue to live their lives "spending our kids' inheritance.

They will be at the Relay for Life this weekend.

"My mom is coming," Dee said. "She's 88, and it's her first relay. It's going to be a really emotional day."

Bruce said the vibe at the relay is something really special.

"It is not a spectator thing," he said. "It's like a 24-hour party."

For him, one of the highlights is the torch ceremony. During the day, people place luminarias along the relay path.

"Walking with the torch ... everyone has held it and as you're going around, you seen the luminarias with names...." Bruce choked up and couldn't continue.

The relay is a pledge event. For some weeks, people have sought pledges to complete laps, and it goes for 24 hours. The gates open at 6 a.m. Saturday at Wasuma Elementary School in Ahwahnee. The first lap goes to survivors. There are booths, food, games, music and information stations. People camp on the site. Breakfast, lunch and dinner -- and a midnight hot-dog feed -- are sponsored by service clubs including Oakhurst Lutheran Church, Soroptimist, Oakhurst Sunrise Rotary, Cal Fire and a group called the Widders.

Bruce said 400 people participated last year.

"Come and participate," Bruce said. "Cancer has no price tag. Celebrate survivors and remember the people who didn't make it. Fight for the cure."

But he said the main thing is to bring people together.

"As long as I live, I will be involved."