Walking through the fire

Published 3:11 pm Friday, November 16, 2007

Leslie Hollingsworth was six months pregnant with her third child when she found out her husband, Clint, had cancer in August 2006.

Clint phoned Leslie with the news. At first she thought he was kidding, but when he read the definition of lymphoma, Leslie knew it was serious.

Leslie was at home with the couple’s two girls: Caroline, 6, and Eliza, 4, and her niece.

“I immediately started bawling,” said Leslie.

Clint had a swollen lymph node.

“It didn’t hurt. There was no discomfort or pain,” said Clint.

Clint didn’t have a doctor, and like many men, said he would have ignored it, but Leslie wouldn’t let him.

“She was on me and on me to get it checked out,” he said.

He turned to friends, Dr. Bill Myers and Myers’ wife Dr. Lisa Joines.

“He basically looked at it and said, ‘I would rather you see a specialist,’” said Clint.

Clint saw Dr. Joan Iacobelli at Surgical Arts. When a two-week dose of antibiotics didn’t decrease the nodule, Iacobelli removed it surgically.

“It was the size of a golf ball,” said Clint.

Initial lab results indicated follicular lymphoma.

“There is no treatment. You just watch it,” said Leslie.

With that type of cancer, Clint would only have five to 10 years to live.

Leslie and Clint’s mother spent a weekend thinking Clint had terminal cancer but never mentioned that to Clint.

“I had come to the conclusion after I had my breakdown for two days, if we had five years with him, I was thankful for that,” said Leslie.

Following an appointment with an oncologist, Dr. James Foran at Kirkland Clinic in Birmingham, the couple were relieved to learn Clint had large B-cell lymphoma which has a high cure rate.

Foran developed an aggressive plan to attack the cancer, said Clint.

Clint was scheduled for six rounds of chemotherapy every six weeks. It was going to take him 18 weeks to complete the grueling schedule.

“I was at every appointment, every chemotherapy,” said Leslie. “I didn’t work and I was able to do that.”

With John Clinton’s birth on Nov. 13, Clint said he didn’t have time to think about himself.

“Your roles are continually changing. I still need to be able to work, to take care of myself, my wife and my two girls,” said Clint. “I did the things I was supposed to do. My main focus was, hopefully, my wife and three kids.”

Prayers and Support

Financial support started with Clint from his church, First Baptist in Cullman.

“They had a fundraiser for us,” said Leslie. “We had insurance but they insisted on doing something.”

“My friends were real excited about what had been raised,” said Leslie.

The day John Clinton was born a 24-hour prayer chain was started for him.

“My friend got it going,” Leslie said about Joey Orr, who teaches at Cullman City Primary School. Teachers were the first to sign up.

“They didn’t just do it for weeks,” said Leslie. “Some probably prayed at 2 o’clock in the morning all the way up until his death.”

Leslie sent out “mass e-mails” during Clint and John Clinton’s illnesses. She sent one e-mail to family and friends that the family was financially prepared for whatever lay ahead.

Clint’s employers, Tim and Lori Smith at College Tire in Hanceville, made a special trip to the Hollingsworth home to assure them that they were going to take care of them.

“Tim and Lori Smith were very, very supportive to myself and my family,” said Clint. “They took care of us through all of this.”

“They have been super, great Christian people,” he said.

New Arrival

Things seemed to be looking up for the Hollingsworth family. John Clinton Hollingsworth was born Nov. 13, 2006, at Huntsville Hospital.

“I have always had this fear that something might be wrong with one of my children,” said Leslie.

Sadly, her fears were soon realized.

“The baby was born and he never cried,” she said. “I wasn’t really that concerned about it. And then he still never cried. It was obvious he wasn’t breathing.”

“Should we start CPR? That is all I remember hearing,” she said.

John Clinton was whisked away to the neonatal intensive care unit. He was diagnosed with congenital diaphragmatic hernia — a hole in the diaphragm.

The diaphragm is a muscle that separates the vital organs of the lungs and heart from the stomach and intestines.

John Clinton’s diaphragm was virtually missing on the left side, allowing his intestines to rise up to his lungs. The lung was not able to expand, and his heart was being pushed to the right side of his chest, according to Leslie.

Leslie did not realize at first how critical the situation was, but following an x-ray, the couple was asked if the baby could be flown to Vanderbilt University Hospital.

They opted for the closer Children’s Hospital in Birmingham.

While they were loading John Clinton onto the helicopter, Clint and Leslie were getting into the car.

“We were driving out of the parking lot and watched him fly off,” an emotional Leslie said. “I cried the whole way there.”

When the couple arrived at Children’s, Leslie said she still thought it was “no big deal” and the doctors would “fix him.”

Those beliefs changed when she saw John Clinton was purple and on a ventilator.

“He was still really struggling to breathe,” she said. “That is when I knew it was bad; that is when I lost it.”

Joines, the couple’s pediatrician, met them at Children’s.

Doctors kept the couple informed of John Clinton’s condition into the evening, but at 10:30 p.m. he was put on an extra corporeal membrane oxygenation machine. His blood traveled through a tube outside of his body to be oxygenated and returned to him.

John Clinton was on the ECMO machine for three weeks. Doctors hoped to take him off it to perform a surgery to move his intestines down and insert a patch in place of the diaphragm.

Doctors decided to perform the surgery with John Clinton still on the ECMO machine, increasing the risk of bleeding.

While Clint continued chemotherapy treatment, the family watched over John Clinton.

“We thought it might be the last time we saw him alive,” Leslie said about her son.

“We didn’t say that to each other,” said Leslie. “We would never speak of that.”

Following the surgery, John Clinton suddenly started doing better.

“He all of a sudden — boom — started doing well and was able to come off of

John Clinton had been on the machine for 33 days.

There were “a lot of ups and downs,” said Leslie.

“Two months after he was born, John Clinton was able to come off of the ventilator,” said Leslie. “Clint finally finished chemo.”

John Clinton came off of the ventilator for two months.

“We were getting ready to go home. Then he developed pneumonia,” said Leslie. “He didn’t get to go home.”

John Clinton went back on a ventilator for a month.

“He just started going down hill very quickly,” Leslie said.

On April 30, a mother’s worst fear occurred.

“He died in my arms in the hospital,” Leslie said.

A Family Portrait

“We thought he would be home by Easter,” said Leslie.

But before his death, when John Clinton wasn’t able to come home, Leslie remembered the matching outfits her friend, Shannon Witcher, had given the Hollingsworth siblings.

As nurses held up a sheet as a backdrop, the Hollingsworths posed for their only family portrait of all their children, including the ailing John Clinton. Their girls, Catherine and Eliza, wore dresses with monogrammed initials, and tiny John Clinton wore an outfit with whales.

“It’s the only picture of all the kids,” Leslie said.

It was also the only time the girls held their brother.

John Clinton was so fragile that Leslie could not let anyone get close to his face.

“If I had known the outcome, we would have held him a lot more,” she said.

A Difficult Time

“After he had died, it was just rough on the kids,” said Leslie.

Leslie had been going to the hospital every day.

“I would drop them at school and head to the hospital. Depending on how he was, I would get home anywhere between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. every night. There wasn’t a whole lot of mommy/daddy or kid time,” she said.

Family and friends took turns watching the girls.

“My mom did a whole lot,” she said. “Friends just really stepped up.”

The girls, like many children, always wanted to go to Disney World, said Leslie.

With Mother’s Day approaching, Leslie wanted to get out of town. Clint and Leslie planned a surprise trip for the girls.

The Hollingsworth girls woke up for a normal day at school.

Leslie told the girls, “Let’s just take the day off today” and said they were going to Birmingham.

With tears in her eyes, Leslie said, “The little one said, ‘I want to go to Children’s Hospital to play.’”

By the time Clint and Leslie pulled into the airport, the girls finally guessed what was happening.

“They guessed Disney World and started going crazy in the car,” Leslie said.

The family stayed for four days.

“It was a good trip,” said Leslie. “It gave the kids some joy in the darkness.”

A New Path

While the Hollingsworths planned to reconnect with their daughters, Pastor Edwin Hayes of First Baptist Church had plans for Clint.

“The pastor came to me and said, ‘You have been nominated as a deacon. Pray about it; think about it,’” Clint said.

When people think about a deacon, they envision an older man with a lot of wisdom, said Clint.

“That is not necessarily what a deacon is,” Clint said. “He is someone who is willing to serve whether he is 30 years old or 80 years old.”

He said he thought and prayed a lot about the role of a deacon. There are a lot of exciting things going on at First Baptist Church in Cullman involving youth, Clint said.

After a few weeks and a vote by the other deacons, Clint was ordained a deacon recently in a service at First Baptist Church.

Looking back over the past year, Clint has a different perspective today on his illness.

“When you look back — wow — there’s a little bit more to it than you thought. Afterward, you realize it was serious. Over time, you become more aware of what’s happened,” he said.

He said he has learned not to take things for granted now, including his own life and his children.

“A lot of good has come out it,” said Clint.

He said he has learned people from as far away as Chicago have prayed for his family.

“It’s just really remarkable how many people heard our story and were touched by it” he said.

A lot of people have told Leslie she is strong.

“I am not strong, but God is. He is the one who gets you through it,” said Leslie.