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by Erica Goodwin Tragedy has a way of bringing people together. For sisters-in-law Autumn Conley and Sherry Conley, the heartbreak of having each lost a beloved family member to cancer has united them; now, the pair have their sights set on helping others battling cancer.  Sherry Conley, Cassandra Feltrop (Director of Foundation & Marketing) and Autumn Conley visit about the Cancer Center of Excellence and upcoming plans for the Special Gifts Committee. As chair of the White County Medical Foundation Special Gifts Committee, Autumn is leading the effort to raise gifts from individual donors in the amount of $10,000 to $100,000 as part of the Legacy Circle to build the Cancer Center of Excellence. When the Foundation initially suggested the idea of adding this new service a couple of years ago, Autumn said a center for cancer care was the obvious choice to her. A self-proclaimed "bean counter," Autumn is in charge of the numbers at trucking company Conley Transport, which she and her husband Rory own and operate. Therefore, the logistics of building a Cancer Center of Excellence was the most feasible idea to her because of the location; it will be situated on the property owned by White County Medical Center on Main Street, which will connect to the Central Arkansas Radiation Therapy Institute (CARTI) building. To assist in raising funds, Autumn recruited her sister-in-law Sherry to serve as a member of the Special Gifts Committee. "I am thrilled that White County Medical Center has the vision they do and that I'm able to share in it, even if it's just a little bit," Sherry says. Autumn and Sherry have transformed their stories of personal pain into a mission that will have a significant impact in White County as the Cancer Center is built and will serve as a place of help and healing for years to come. The Conley family's commitment to quality cancer care is evident through their own pledge to the Cancer Center of Excellence, which will be used to create the Healing Garden. Although they have had some time to heal, life has not always been rosy for Autumn and Sherry, as both of their lives have, at some point, been wrought with the agony of losing a dear family member. Born at the old Rogers Hospital in Searcy, Autumn laughs as she says that she was supposed to be a boy, because her Dad wanted a son. Being raised "as a boy" contributed to her interest in sports and love of horses. The family even moved to Judsonia during her sophomore year of high school so she could play basketball. With her natural athletic ability, Autumn quickly became a star player on the team. Then, sadness came a year later as she learned that her father, her hero, was ill. "It was my junior year of playing basketball, when my Dad developed lung cancer," Autumn says. "Up until that time, from peewee ball through that year in high school, he had never missed a game. Whether it was a tournament in the morning or afternoon, he took off work and went to the game." Autumn says her older sister was the one to tell her the bad news that their father had been diagnosed with lung cancer. The doctors had found a large mass in his lung and performed a biopsy that day, which resulted in an overnight stay in the hospital. "I knew he went to the doctor that day, but I just never thought about it. Then, when I got home from school my sister's car was there, so I knew something was up," Autumn recalls. "I had a big game that night, but he had sent word to me to go on and play basketball and that he would be disappointed if I didn't score at least 40 points. It was very hard to do. It was the first time in my life that I looked up into the stands and he wasn't there, but I did score 42 points that night with tears running down my cheeks." Diagnosed at the age of 48, Autumn's father beat the odds and lived with the devastating cancer for four years. "That was in 1977, and back then cancer was a death sentence, especially cancer like that," Autumn says. "You got maybe three to six months to live when, at the time, all they had to treat cancer was Cobalt. Plus, you had to drive back and forth to Little Rock for treatment. It was a terrible burden on my parents to have to travel like that, especially as business owners." Cancer is traumatic enough, Autumn says, and having to travel makes it all the more traumatic when you feel miserable and have to fight traffic and bad weather. Despite the twenty-some-odd years that have passed since his death, Autumn's love and fondness for her father has not faded over time as she talks about him with great admiration. The great-looking, quick-witted man she knew was consumed by cancer that whittled him down to skin and bones. Years later, tragedy struck Autumn again when she and her husband Rory experienced the death of their only child to cystic fibrosis. At the age of 13, John Tyler Conley took his last breath after spending 200 days at Arkansas Children's Hospital; Autumn and Rory had spent each of those days by his side. In the throes of despair, Rory asked his brother, Sherry's husband, Richard, to make the arrangements for John Tyler's funeral. "Richard made all the arrangements for us, and for that we are forever grateful," Autumn says. "He had such a big heart; maybe too big, if that can be said of someone. He would give his last cent. I could ask him to do anything and it would be done instantly." After the loss of her son, Autumn says Richard and Sherry's younger daughter Candace started spending more time with her. The two shared a love of animals and they grew closer as they spent time together caring for Autumn's horses. "We just clicked," Autumn says. "I often wondered why Sherry wouldn't get mad at me for spending that time with Candace, but she was always so good about sharing her own daughter with me. That's just the kind of person she is. Sherry knows that I think I gave birth to Candace!" Sherry's personal experience with cancer began in 1997, when she and her husband Richard discovered a curious spot on his calf; it was melanoma. The spot was removed and the doctors at UAMS said they removed the cancer, along with five lymph nodes, which they said were clear and that no more treatment was needed. "Being young, we didn't know that we could insist that he have chemotherapy as a precaution," Sherry says. "We just took the doctor's word as fact." In addition to Stage III melanoma, Sherry says Richard's 40s were plagued with three kidney stones, surgery to have his spleen removed after a car wreck, triple bypass surgery and two stents placed; all performed at White County Medical Center. After surviving his tumultuous 40s, Richard took advantage of an opportunity to enter the real estate business, and in 2005 he bought a local real estate franchise. Sherry received her real estate license shortly after he purchased the office, and the couple worked as a husband-and-wife team. "It came so natural to him; he loved meeting people," Sherry says. "Richard was the type you either really loved him, or you didn't like him at all. He had a magnetic personality and a really big heart and he loved his girls; they are spoiled rotten." "Everything was rocking along well; I was running the office and he was managing the agents. Then, in December 2006, we found out he had cancer," Sherry recalls. "We found it on his hip this time; there were seven lesions, but that wasn't the primary source of the cancer, which we later learned was in his lung. It was melanoma again and within six weeks he was gone. All the initial tests were done at WCMC," Sherry says. "We have a very strong church family that works there, from Valley Baptist, and everybody was very gracious and bent over backwards to meet whatever need Richard had." Having experienced the same situation as a young girl, Autumn was all too familiar with the worry and heartache that her two nieces, Misty and Candace, were facing with their Dad. "When Richard was diagnosed, he was 48, the same age my Dad was when we found out he had cancer," she says. "I knew exactly what the girls were feeling and could identify with their pain." After a brief visit with oncologists at UAMS, Richard and Sherry were referred to the Mayo Clinic. "That's when they told us on January 1, 2007, that there was nothing they could do," Sherry says. "We asked 'how long?' [Richard had to live] and at that time the doctors said 'two weeks,' and it was two weeks to the day that we came home and he died." The anguish of losing her husband, her high-school sweetheart, was even more heartbreaking with the birth of the Conley's first grandchild the same day. Sherry says the Hospice nurses gently told her that they needed to take Richard to the hospital the morning of January 18, just as Misty, their older daughter, was being induced to deliver her first child. "She gave birth at 3:30 p.m. and Richard died at 8:30 that night. He never got to see Samuel. Richard knew he was being born, and when we told him Samuel had arrived, he gave two thumbs up - he did that all the time " so, he knew, but it's just sad. You have never seen a man so carried away with wanting to be a Grandpa," Sherry says. "I mean it was sickening. I know that's why God took him because nobody would be able to stand him. Both of the girls were pregnant at the same time, so I had the death of my husband, a new grandson and a daughter that I was not able to be with through the birth of her first child. Then, five weeks later, I was blessed to be able to watch my grandson Avery come into the world." "God is so good, and He knows exactly what we need when we need it; He knew I needed to stay busy," she says. "I had this business to deal with because when Richard died, he was the broker here, and I'd only been in the business two years. With the way real estate works, you have to be an agent a minimum of two years before you even can take your broker's test. I had to get a waiver to take my state board broker's test so I could even continue on with the business. I kept the business for two years, but I just couldn't continue to do it when everywhere I looked was Richard." "I know that everything happens for a reason and that God has given me this ministry to minister to widows and to people that are going through cancer. It's not a ministry I asked for, but it's what I've been given. I could tell you all kinds of different stories of people I've come in contact with that I've been able to minister to, and God has given me the strength and courage to minister to them, even laugh and cry with them, because of the circumstances that I've gone through. It's only by the grace of God that I came through it." With her two daughters and sons-in-law and now three precious grandsons - Rhett was born two years later - living within a block of her home, Sherry says the family derives strength from one another. Looking back, Sherry says she wonders why they did not ask for follow-up treatment and annual scans during the 10-year period between Richard's bouts with cancer that could have possibly detected it. "I hate to see people go somewhere else, or feel like they have to go somewhere else, to get cancer treatment," Sherry says. "I want the people of White County and surrounding counties to feel secure in the treatment, advice and care that they are getting right here." As awesome as the team of seven doctors was at the Mayo Clinic, Sherry says receiving the news of Richard's condition was difficult to deal with alone. "When you're sitting there by yourself - no family, no friends, nothing - to console you, it's hard to take. If I can help prevent somebody from having to go off and be away from their family to receive news like that, I think it would be worth it all." "I want to see the Cancer Center blossom and grow to be a major staple here in White County," Sherry says. "Also, my grandmother died from cancer, so there's other history of cancer in my family. I want to make sure my two girls are well taken care of and the three little boys who will never get to know their granddad. Another reason I got involved is because, as a business person, I need to be a part of what's going on in the community," she says. "When you can pick and choose what you want to be involved in, I cannot think of a better thing to be involved in than something you've personally been through. Autumn has always had a special place in her heart for people who have gone through cancer treatment," Sherry added. "We've been sisters-in-law for more than 30 years, and we've had our differences, but she loves my girls and that means a lot to me. I know that whatever I need, she's right there for me, and I'm there for her, too. When she asked me if I wanted to help with this, I was absolutely honored that she thought of me. It's a matter of the heart." "I just want to encourage everybody who will read this article to take a moment and think about the people you've lost to this disease. What if tomorrow you went to the doctor - either you or your children - and got that diagnosis," Autumn asks. "Wouldn't you be glad that there's a place in your hometown with people from a place like "My Hospital" that was looking after you, instead of total strangers?" If you wish to join Autumn and Sherry in building the Cancer Center of Excellence by becoming a member of the Legacy Circle, please call (501) 380-1052. Writer Erica Goodwin is with the Marketing Dept. at White County Medical Center. Go Back to Contents Go to SearcyLiving.com |
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