About The Eatonton messenger. (Eatonton, Ga.) 18??-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 4, 2025)
A6 | THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2025 The Eatonton Aessenger www.msgrnews.com Good Samaritan Auxiliary introduces Charleston Wrap fundraising sale COMING SOON! Our Charleston Wrap 2025 Fall Fundraiser! :!!!! BERT • • Bis ■a n^ • N 11* =:”■ ■a ill St. Mary’s Good Samaritan Hospital Auxiliary is bringing back its popular holiday fund raiser - Charleston Wrap - to provide high-quality gifts for your holiday gift-giving while raising funds for the mission and services of St. Mary’s Good Samaritan Hospital. Charleston Wrap is known for its high quality gift wrap, kitchen and home products, hundreds of personalized items and a variety of unique, priced- right items.With over 2,500 items available through their online store, you are sure to find something that you — or the person whose gift you are looking for — would love to have. The Auxiliary’s Charleston Wrap sale will be open from Sept. 1 through Sept. 30. All items will be delivered directly to your home. Here’s how to participate: Go to registercw.com Enter the Good Samaritan Hospital Auxiliary Username: 28572 (very important: this is how you tell Charleston Wrap to credit your purchase to the Good Sam Auxiliary.) Invite friends and family to support the cause by using convenient invitation tools All proceeds from the Charleston Wrap Sale will be used for the Auxiliary’s support of St. Mary’s Good Samaritan Hospital. The Auxiliary has been in existence at the hospi tal’s current location for more than 12 years and currently has 92 volunteers who serve in a variety of roles from greeting patients and visitors to staffing the hospital gift shop and the new Good Samaritan Hospital Upscale Thrift Store. “Our Auxiliary’s support is vital to maintaining and improving the equipment and services we provide for our community,” said Bria Brown, Good Samaritan Hospital director of administrative operations. “We give them our deepest thanks for their tremendous commitment, and thank our community for supporting all the Auxiliary does for our hospital and our patients.” — Contributed WRECK CONTINUED FROM » A1 2023 Infiniti QX 80 she was driving. Her SUV went into the grass median, then back out of the median and into the intersection. As she went through the intersection, her QX 80 clipped a U-Haul trailer that was being pulled by a Dodge Ram pickup going southbound through the intersection and driven by a 22-year-old Florida man. The crash caused the side of the U-Haul to separate from the trailer. Still out of control, the QX 80 struck a dark colored 2015 Nissan Altima that was also heading southbound through the intersection and driven by a 29-year-old Waycross man. Next, the Infiniti crashed head-on into a white Nissan Altima driven by a 19-year-old Blackshear woman who was stopped in the southbound left turn lane. The impact pushed the Altima into a 2001 Chev rolet Silverado being driven by a 56-year-old man from Cleve land, Ga. Other vehicles reportedly hit either by the QX 80 or by wreckage debris include a white Toyota Highlander and a blue Nissan Altima. “Her car just bounced off from car to car and debris was flying,” Cardwell said. “Thankfully, no one was seriously injured.” Cardwell said traffic was limited to only one lane for about an hour as emergency personnel worked the wreck and cleared the scene. Kilgore and the driver of the white Altima that was hit head-on were both taken by Putnam County EMS to Putnam General Hospital. On Tuesday at the newspaper’s press time, Cardwell said both had been released from the hospital. Cardwell said it is not yet known what caused Kilgore to lose control of her vehicle; and, he turned the investigation over to the Georgia State Patrol. COURTESY OF EATONTON POLICE The Infiniti SUV that triggered the accident sustained severe damage, but no one involved in the crash was seriously injured, according to Eatonton police. JOURNEY CONTINUED FROM » A5 stoma pouch and supplies, but necessity being the mother of invention, and with little choice, I figured out living on my own at home in Scottdale in about a week. As spring arrived, we began a regimen of seemingly daily medical appointments and twice- monthly chemotherapy for OPERRY, GA ENDS SEPTEMBER 9 & 16 DEVELOPMENT AUCTIONS GOLF COURSE COMMUNITY & COMMERCIAL LAND Seven@Hills 7HAUCTIONS.COM | 800.742.9165 - ... GA: AU-C003134, GA: AU-003505, GA-77326, GA-319468 I 10% Buyer's Premium, Visit Our Website For Full Details C 110 N Funeral Iome May those who have lost a loved one find strength in the love of family and in the warm embrace of friends. McCommons Funeral Home Callaway Funeral Home, and Georgia’s Lake Country Crematory "Over 100 Years and 5 Generations of Family Funeral and Cremation Service” FUNERAL HOMES - MONUMENTS - PREARRANGEMENTS - CREMATORY 706.453.2626 706.486.4138 109 W. Broad St « Greensboro, GA 30642 208 N. Rhodes St ■ Union Point, GA 30669 mccommonsfuneralhome.com • |lakeoconeecrematory.com! Icallawayfuneralhome.com] 1 Lake Oconees Onsite Crematory 1 1 IERNARD’S Y FUNERAL CARE 08/ "Service as good as its promise" .Q Vining Ivy Hill Q Chapel. 706.485.4144 "We will be there for you like a member of tire family" www.viningivyhill.com 48-hours sessions with the wonderful medical staff at Georgia Cancer Specialists in Decatur, where my care team was led by Dr. Kath leen Lambert. I dove into three months of chemotherapy, the side effects of which are very real, making it quite daunting to maintain a regular life and work schedule. Never wonderful at entirely following directions, I took all my prescribed meds but (706)485-4494 Eatonton, GA www.bernardsfamilyfuneralcare.com experienced a few gaps in managing hydration and fluid intake.I swapped once-weekly chair yoga for fairly regular and more challenging practice, walking outside when my body could handle the prickly heat, and weath ering the neuropathy, cold sensitivity, and occasional falling out of teeth or hair. But again, with your help and support, I powered through. My particular cancer (particularly those sneaky signet ring cells) has a high chance of return ... but I am by nature a bit of a gambler. I like challenging projects and work which others often tell mecannot be done. Quality of life means incredibly more to me than quantity. I have no desire to leave, but neither do I choose a very limited or even decrepit existence as I witnessed during treatment, meeting several other long-term survivors still fighting hard after years of consec utive treatment. I wanted to know if my treatment was doing its job, and if, as my body was telling me, the chemo had already successfully placed my cancer at bay and was by that time focused on eating/damaging other healthy cells. Challenges with blood cell counts, liver, kidney, and even heart function were REFLECT CONTINUED FROM >: A4 and friendships and my family, too. I never thought I would outlive the Beloved Woman Who Shared My Name. But I did. I thought we would grow old together. But we didn’t. I have endowed a fellowship and schol arships in her name at beginning to multiply, along with a new prescrip- tion/medication for most every new symptom. I saw a cardiologist and other specialists, began acupuncture to ward off the nerve pain and neurop athy, and resumed visits to a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, which forces oxygen into deep tissue and internal organs, and as I knew from earlier experience, aids healing.I continued to come across data telling me that cancer does notlove oxygen ... which is part of why regular exercise is so good for you during healing and so bad for the cancer returning. A newer technology and test called Signatera from Natera Pharma measures the presence of cancer cells, taken from the pathology and samples of your own tumor/tumors post-surgery, creating a customized sampling in search of specific cancer cells and their potential growth or return in your bloodstream. Without cancer DNA, you cannot have new cancer cells, and without cancer cells you cannot have a new mass or tumor. That test was drawn into multiple vials on July 30, before my last chemo session, and I was tipped on the results late afternoon on Aug. 12. And negative, there were no the Wellstar School of Nursing at Kennesaw State University and painted her portrait which hangs there. I have commissioned a stained- glass window in her honor at her beloved church. But none of this fills the emptiness or the regrets I have for not being the best spouse I could have been when I had the chance. Sadly, I don’t get a do-over. The French Quaker cancer DNA cells in my bloodstream! And that was the second time with that result. Those tests will continue going forward, roughly every three months. Again, operating on the supposition that signetring cells and perhaps a smaller or dormant tumor or mass were hiding elsewhere, I had my third CT scan in six months. Thankfully again, the results were the same all three times, no shadows and no visible tumors or evidence of cancer cells spreading or metastasizing. I nearly exploded with joy that morning on the confirmation of what my body had been telling me for weeks. I will share one wisdom if you or your family later trod this or a similar path: listen to your doctors and medical team, butyou are the expert on you, do not be afraid to self-advocate and always listen to your own body and its signals. Just pay attention to what your gut is telling you. Treatment will continue. I am exploring a highly regarded clinical trial at the University of Florida, where an mRNA vaccine, customized again to indi vidual cancers, is helping patients’ immune systems to identify, seek out, and destroy new cancer cells. Immunotherapy may also be a later treatment minister and missionary Stephen Grellet wrote, “I shall pass this way but once; any good that I can do or any kindness I can show to any human being; let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again. I shall pass through this world but once.” The iconic “September Song,” by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson states the days grow short when option. Blood work and medical visits will continue to be routine, but without the rigors and after-effects of the chemo.I am taking/ making a calculated risk here, and my oncologist would prefer the certainty of three more months of that treatment. Time will tell if I made the better decision. This fall, a second surgery and a “bionic” smaller intestine will give me a return of a more typical food and waste exit path. Regular exercise, including morning Tai Chi is already underway, as well as a much more fresh- food diet, and no alcohol, all contributing to a better path to maintaining well ness on the journey yet ahead. I feel incredibly opti mistic and just under seven months from the date of my diagnosis to today, I am feeling well, getting stronger each day, and I am cancer free, while working and hoping to stay that way. Thank you all again for reading these updates, as well as for caring, praying and sending your warm thoughts and words along. My positive attitude never dipped for a moment, and in many ways, you all were collectively better medicine for me than the chemo. God bless you and yours! you reach September. And that is where we are. For me, the days are dwindling down to the precious few. And they are precious. May I not waste another one. I am only going to pass this way once. It is September and a time for reflection. You can reach Dick Yarbrough at dick@ dickyarbrough.com or at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, Georgia 31139 306 N. Jefferson Street, Eatonton, GA 31024 706-485-3303 1670 N. 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Habitat for Humanity of Putnam Restore Hours Thursday: 10am - 4pm iffeels Restore your donation helps a family build a strong foundation for the future. Friday- Saturday: putnamcountyhabitat.org 706-991-1600 - NEW LOCATION - 866 Harmony Road Eatonton, GA 31024 Bring this ad with you and receive an additional 10% off your purchase! 10am - 4pm 10am - 4pm Scan to Request a Home Pickup Shop. Donate. Volunteer.
