‘Have you considered the Barrons? There is none like them in all the earth.’

Testimony by Kerrie Barron
Edited & minor liberties by Jana Amos

On April 11, 2006, my 25th wedding anniversary, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I sat in the doctor’s office alone — I had chosen to go alone. I had been through many mammograms and “spots” that always turned out to be nothing.

I suffered fibrocystic disease, so I was used to cysts that would need to be checked more after a mammogram but were always nothing.

This time was different. My worst fear in life had come true. It was malignant this time. The fear instantly grips you — death. The doctor gave me all the options available to me. I listened and asked questions, but it was surreal, as if it wasn’t really happening to me.

Somehow I was at peace. Certainly not in my head, but God gave me total peace about what was coming.

I got to the parking lot and must have had 25 missed calls, all from Tim, my husband. He was in the parking lot waiting for me. I squalled when I got to the car and tried to tell him everything the doctor had told me.

We needed to talk more. We went to McAlister’s, got some tea and sat outside and talked. And talked. The kids kept calling, but I just couldn’t answer. Tim and I talked about the realities of it, the options the doctor had given me, and what we would do. Finally Tim took me back to the parking lot to get my car.

Instead of using South 28th Avenue to drive home, I crossed Highway 49 to the East. I stopped in oncoming traffic as I saw a semi-truck coming and thought, “Why should I go? I’m going to die anyway!” But that was the only fleeting moment of hopelessness I experienced. I got it back together, quickly crossed traffic and went home. As Tim & I separately entered our subdivision, street, and driveway, special signs led the way. Our boys — Seth, 15, and Scott, 13 — had made a spaghetti dinner for our anniversary, and I just didn’t have the heart to tell them anything right away.

On April 24, I had a double mastectomy. It was the radical choice, but I had lumps in both breasts, even though only one side showed cancerous cells that needed treatment. I had none of the “normal” risk factors. I was mid-40s, had breast-fed my children and had no immediate female relative with breast cancer. After prayer and seeking God’s direction, I chose the mastectomy. It was a painful three months of healing, including weekly trips to the doctor to have tissue expanded. Finally on July 11, I had the implant surgery.

Three months later, on July 24, I returned to work. I’m a part-time probation clerk in the federal court system. Employees in the Hattiesburg, Gulfport and Jackson offices pooled their donated time off. In those three months, I never missed one paycheck. God provided through all those people. Being part-time, I certainly didn’t have three months of paid leave available!

Life was returning to normal, so we thought. The school year and football season was beginning. Tim was an assistant football coach at Hattiesburg High, with a new head coach that year. On Saturday, Aug. 5, Tim began having flu-like symptoms. On Sunday, Aug. 6, he began running fever. I took him to a clinic, and they ran some tests. They sent us home with no diagnosis. Tim couldn’t make it to football practice, which was unacceptable to him. Sunday afternoon he had me take a doctor’s excuse by the field house and put on the new head coach’s desk. Tim is not one to miss work, especially with a new boss!

Monday I had to go to work, but the boys weren’t in school yet, so they kept an eye on Tim. He slept most of the day. In the late afternoon after I was home, he came into the kitchen and looked terrible: dizzy and unsure of his surroundings. As it became apparent he was going to hit the floor — he had no strength of his own — he said, “Call an ambulance.”

When we got to the emergency room, he had fever, body aches and a torso rash. Finally, mid-early morning hours of Tuesday, Aug. 8, Tim was admitted to the hospital after many tests. They thought they were dealing with spinal meningitis but no diagnosis. I had asked several doctors if it could be West Nile but was always told no. He didn’t have the right symptoms or some other reason.

The clinic and the hospital sent his blood to the lab for testing for West Nile, but it takes 7-10 days for results. After about a week-and-a-half in the hospital, they sent Tim home. They could do no more for him. As far as they could guess, he had bacterial spinal meningitis.

During Tim’s time in the hospital, school had started. The Temple family took care of my boys. I literally had no idea exactly where my children were. They were with church people who finished getting them ready for school – supplies, shoes, clothes, etc. How can you thank someone when you don’t know whom to thank?

Scott needed football equipment one day while his dad was still in the hospital, but Tim always took care of that. He called me and told me he had to have it to start practice after school. I asked what to get and where to get it, and I would bring it to school. So I went to the sporting goods store, bought stuff, took it to his school and was driving back to the hospital – hopefully before Tim ever realized I was gone. I didn’t feel I could be gone from there for even a minute, as if something may happen.

I was rushing from the school to the hospital, and I felt the Spirit telling me to go home. I kept saying, “No, I don’t have time.” It just kept pulling me home. So I finally reasoned with myself to go check the mail or something. I got to the mailbox, and He made me go inside.

As I got inside, a fireball was over the stove top.

I was almost paralyzed as I wasn’t sure what to do, but I reached and turned off the burner that had been on under a Teflon skillet. It got so hot that it created this fireball. After it was over, I called our oldest son Sammy, who was 20 and working at the time, and asked him if he had been home for lunch that day. He had, but he had not used the stove. He had probably bumped the stove knob into the ‘on’ position when he got a glass out of the cabinet. The absolutely wonderful thing, besides the Lord saving the house, is that just that morning in the hospital room I had asked God where He was. As I shut off the burner, I felt God wrap His arms around me. I knew He was there and would take care of us, no matter what happened.

About this time during Tim’s illness, I started feeling a slight headache, minor face pain and had a low-grade fever. I kept having those little nagging symptoms. While Tim was still in the hospital, I finally ran over to the Hattiesburg Clinic to our family physician, Dr. Rod Cutrer, and I asked him to give me something for what I thought was the worst sinus headache ever. This seemed to help for a couple of days, but I eventually returned to the clinic for help from flu-like symptoms that wouldn’t go away and a small rash on my torso area, and they ran a blood test for West Nile.

We took Tim home from the hospital after a week-and-a-half to two-week stay. Neither one of us could get out of the bed at all during the next several weeks. It was as if a constant flu-like tiredness and aching had overcome us. Ten days after Tim was sent home from the hospital, my lab work came back positive for West Nile Fever.

In the meantime, Tim suffered many different debilitating side effects. On Aug. 28, he finally received a positive test for West Nile Encephalitis Meningitis. The positive test came back after four negative tests. Dr. Cutrer believed that was what Tim was suffering from, so he was persistent in submitting the blood work for a proper diagnosis. One of the awful periods Tim had to go through was when Bell’s palsy struck the left side of his face on August 15. His left eye wouldn’t shut at all, no matter what manual method we attempted to make the eyelid shut!

Due to the fluid on the brain and the swelling, he began to suffer from stroke-like symptoms. He couldn’t sleep, speak or hear. He had to learn how to walk and talk again as if he were a stroke victim. Dr. Cutrer was our primary care physician, but Tim was also under the care of an audiologist, ophthalmologist, neurologist, urologist, and physical therapist.

Tim had been at Hattiesburg High for 11 years. Up to that year, he had never missed school. He had all his sick days remaining, so he never missed a paycheck. On Oct. 16, he returned to his teaching position but was not allowed to return to coaching. The next school year, Tim began a new coaching job as Defensive Coordinator with Perry Central. God provides. No matter what we think should happen or what we worry about, God provides.

From August to October, we literally lived one hour at a time. Temple was truly the hands and feet of Jesus. A meal would show up at the door at 6 every night from Bible Fellowship classes, the choir and whoever else. They even seemed to know if it was just Tim and me or if all three boys were home. It was always just enough.

As it states in the beginning of the book of Job, all the angels came before the Lord (I picture sort of like a staff meeting) and it says, “Satan, the accuser, came with them.” God specifically asked Satan what he had been doing, and he replied that he had been roaming to and fro on the earth watching all that was going on. God specifically said, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is none like him in all the earth.” God not only gave Satan permission to inflict Job, but He specifically pointed him out.

As we were in the middle of our illnesses and trying to make sense of it all, I remember lying in bed one night and telling Tim that wouldn’t it be cool if God allowed Satan to inflict us? What if God said, “Have you considered the Barrons? There is none like them in all the earth.” What if God handpicked us for these trials? It totally changed my perspective on things. I began to thank God for what I was going through because it brought me closer to Him.

Before I had my mastectomy, Dr. Johnny Mayfield (II) prayed over me with a group from our Bible Fellowship class. Through prayer, God shrunk the tumor of primary concern to less than one centimeter, which meant I didn’t have to undergo chemotherapy after the mastectomy. During the West Nile ordeal, Dr. Mayfield and class members came to our house to pray over Tim as his condition deteriorated. Praise God – he has no debilitating effects of the West Nile today. Most who suffer from this form usually don’t recover, if they survive.

I’ve realized we never began the emotional healing of the breast cancer as a family. The West Nile ordeal just put everything on hold. That healing process is beginning.

God can always use our trials to His good if we allow Him to work. One good thing is the beginning of our Breast Cancer Support Group for patients, survivors and caregivers. As women learn about the group or become ready for support, they join us. It is open for anyone (not just women) in the community, not just Temple members. These women know all about a life change, but the group allows them to not have to experience the change alone. Tim has even mentioned having a men’s group.

God’s timing is good. God is good. God provides. But without a family to help me through this change, it would have been a much more difficult road. The family of God is supposed to show Jesus’ love. And that’s just what my Temple family did — our class, the choir, other groups of people. God brought us through, but Temple experienced our changes with us.