I should not be writing this.
In fact, I suspect that, given the information I had in September of last year, right now, I should be simply a memory for my wife, daughter, family and friends. I would be just another soul who would never walk through the door again, but someone always remembered fondly at family get-togethers as the sands of time continued to relentlessly erode away any physical reminder that I had ever walked the earth.
Yet, here I am, enjoying the beautiful springtime of Augusta.
When Hurricane Helene hit, I was two weeks out from being diagnosed with stage 4 cancer of the mouth, tonsils, throat and one lymph node. I had been sick for quite some time, but at this point, the cancer had me fully within it’s jaws. The prognosis was that I had about six months left to live unless drastic steps were taken, and even that was an optimistic outlook of pushing the cancer into remission, or stalemate.
Having watched my father carry on what was a painful and ultimately failed battle against cancer some 40 years ago, I saw no reason to put up much of a fight.
When Garnett Johnson found out I was ill, he literally stepped out of a gavelled commission meeting and rushed over to my house. I could tell that he was a little aghast at my appearance and how I suddenly became so frail, as if it had happened overnight.
The growths in my mouth made my speech only slightly intelligible and I was losing the ability to walk without assistance.
MORE: Echavarria takes home Par 3 Contest win
“You can’t give up, Scott. That’s not you, I’ve never known you to just quit. Promise me you’re going to fight,” Garnett said.
When the hurricane came through, my pharmacy had run out of my medication and didn’t expect to have it for days. The pain became intense, but as I listened to the storm raging outside, I felt calm.
A huge limb from my neighbor’s tree broke off and tumbled into my yard, landing just inches away from my car. While I was a bit shocked to see that occur, I didn’t move away from the window, the storm transfixed me, the sheets of rain rhythmically pounding the front of the house made me feel as if I were in the wheelhouse of a ship, battling its way through the ocean, being tossed, but not capsizing.
God was communicating with me. He reminded me of my father’s last sermon, given in May 1984, one month before he died.
Dad could barely walk, he could barely breathe, yet, he had the strength to mask the pain and joke with the congregation that he might outlive them all. I remember, in the month leading up to that last sermon, he waved away the morphine pills he was prescribed. He was intensely studying his Bible and making notes, sometimes breaking out in song, “What a friend we have in Jesus,” in his unmistakable baritone.
I realized that my dad had set the perfect example for me. His faith and devotion to the Lord was an inspiration to everyone around him, and I decided, as that storm raged around me outside, that I would follow his lead, put my faith in my Savior Jesus Christ and accept the circumstances as being his will without trying to divine his plan for my life or wallow in self-pity.
My health might be failing, but my mind was intact and my talent with words as sharp as ever. I decided that I must keep writing until God took the keyboard away.
MORE: Hurricane Helene, Map & Flag, pace of play and more addressed by Augusta National chairman
It was then that I also realized that my dad had a limited audience of his small Bayvale Road Baptist Church, but I had a comparatively huge audience in The Augusta Press, where my words might have an impact and help someone else who might be in the midst of that very same or similar storm.
If nothing else, my words might give comfort to someone that they are not alone in facing the tribulations of this hard and sometimes cruel world.
I was put on an aggressive treatment regime that included radiation therapy five times a week as well as a once-a-week dose of chemotherapy. Everyone prayed the disease would not “get loose” and use the lymph gland as a highway to get to my other organs.
The staff at Augusta Oncology, as well as that of Augusta Radiology and Doctor’s Hospital, worked tirelessly during the five-month treatment period but everyone was crestfallen when, in early March it appeared the cancer had migrated to the lungs.
Throughout this time, I only stopped writing for about three weeks when the medication rendered me totally bedridden. I told my editor Stephanie to send me any story ideas. Writing was a comfort, it took my mind off the pain and kept me from dwelling on what the final end would be like and under what circumstances would I draw that final breath.
I wrote about how the boll weevil was eliminated in the South, how pollinators aren’t as endangered as the media wants us to think, the rising star of C.J. Pearson, anything I thought was newsworthy and “fit to print.” I also studied my Bible to gain insight, as I built the foundations for opinion columns I felt compelled to write.
MORE: Golfers talk preparations ahead of 2025 Masters Tournament
My only source of nutrition were protein shakes, and I so longed to eat solid food. Since I couldn’t eat anything that didn’t fit into the feeding tube, I started writing down my favorite recipes, forming the beginnings of a little book all on its own. The cookbook became even more fun when I started incorporating childhood memories, like the story of “Mamasita and Mexicali Soup.”
Like my dad did decades before, I instructed the doctors to lower the amount of pain medication so that I could remain at least somewhat lucid and concentrate on my writing.
If the end was near, I was determined that I would use the remaining time to also continue writing from my heart about the importance of failure and perseverance, how humans are mere specks in universe while we are also all unique in God’s eyes, and reminding that we are all only on this earth a pitifully short time and it is our duty to be kind and help each other whenever possible.
I felt that there were some things God wanted me to say, and I was comfortable in my faith that the Lord would not be taking me home until He was ready. He was driving the car, I was just the passenger, but yet, I remained determined to go out on my own terms.
Throughout the community, my name was placed on virtually every prayer list available, and people from all over social media joined in prayer, some asking God for a miracle. My friend Marcie lit candles for me at cathedrals all over Europe during her latest trip, others came by my house just to sit with me and pass the time reminiscing about days gone by, not with a spirit filled with melancholy, but of laughter at the things we could get away with as kids before the internet came along.
People were praying for a miracle, and a week ago, God delivered that miracle.
The discovery in my lungs necessitated a biopsy. By then, my body weight had dropped to an alarming 141 lbs., and two weeks prior I had to undergo a blood transfusion; but, after the surgery, the pain subsided in my mouth enough to allow me to eat some solid food instead of relying on the feeding tube.
MORE: Tiger Woods to design 9-hole course at The Patch, bring TGR Learning Lab to area
Then, a day or so later, the psoriasis that covered 90% of my body vanished. This was an indication that my immune system had begun fighting something other than itself.
The results from the biopsy came back showing only healthy lung cells.
A follow-up CT scan revealed that the cancer was gone from my mouth, throat, tonsils and lymph nodes. Most miraculously, the growths that were earlier discovered on my lungs had vanished as if they had never been there.
Such is the power of our Lord!
This is not the first time that God has offered me a reprieve in the face of death. In 2008, my immune system went crazy, leaving me in a 12-day coma and I suffered paralysis from what the doctors called “mini-strokes.” In a similar circumstance, I went from not being able to breathe on my own, to regaining the ability to walk in a matter of days, leaving my doctors stunned.
During that experience, I went into cardiac arrest twice and I am convinced that I briefly viewed what we call the afterlife. We do not have language that can describe what I witnessed then, but I can attest that Heaven exists.
Similarly, the community of Augusta back then had prayed for me, adding me to their congregation’s prayer lists and some even went and donated plasma when they were told that I needed the blood product.
All of us have a purpose in life, and it is obvious that God is not finished with me yet. He saw fit to heal my body and reenergize my psyche to not only keep doing what I do best, but to do even more. I have big plans for the future, but the cancer battle also reinforced in me the importance of enjoying the moment, to revel in life’s subtleties like the smell of honeysuckle wafting through the evening air or the euphoric feeling that comes with stumbling across a “triple word score” in a tied Scrabble game.
While I still have more healing to undergo from damage the treatment caused, it is as if I have a new lease on life, and I do. I have all of my friends and the community of Augusta to thank for praying for me and keeping a positive outlook that we could beat this thing if we only held firm in our faith.
Folks, learn from my experience. Never give up. Never, ever give up!
Scott Hudson is the Senior Investigative Reporter, Editorial Page Editor and weekly columnist for The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
