Her swift, decisive response regarding her breast cancer treatment left both her oncologist and her husband stunned.
“I thought this years ago. If it ever happened, I’d just take them both off,” said Pam Kendrick, of her March 2021 appointment with Dr. Karen Yeh after her diagnosis. Yeh had presented multiple options including less radical measures such as a lumpectomy.
Dr. Yeh spoke up.
“‘You didn’t hear us. We’ve only got to take it (the tumor) out,’” Kendrick said as she recounted her doctor’s words. “‘We don’t have to take it (the breast) off.’”
The tumor was small, and likely only a Grade 1, but Kendrick’s mind was made up. Her mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer years before and opted to surgically remove one breast. Her mom’s cancer recurred in 2020 in the other breast.
One of Kendrick’s sisters also had breast cancer and had a double mastectomy. Despite genetic testing that showed Kendrick didn’t carry the BRCA genes, she developed the cancer – a false negative, she presumed.
Because of the family history, Kendrick had been serious about keeping up with her routine mammograms, but COVID-19 delayed her annual appointment by a couple of months.
She’d had suspicious mammograms before. In the past, they’d turned up as nothing. This time, the process went swiftly. The suspicious mammogram resulted in a biopsy and a visit with an oncologist in less than a week. Within three weeks, she’d had the surgery and thought that could be the end of her cancer journey.
Pathology tests dashed that thought. It showed she’d need chemotherapy.
Through most of her treatments, Pam Kendrick tried to continue working as a nursing assistant in the ob/gyn clinic at Dwight David Eisenhower Army Medical Center, but the chemo took a lot out of her, she said. She’d have a round of chemo, it would make her sick, and she’d need to take time off from her job. Once she was well enough to return to work, it was time for the next chemo appointment. The cycle repeated itself for four months.
In addition to the chemotherapy appointments, Kendrick had a slew of medications to take at specified times.
She said she didn’t have enough pill containers to sort them out.
Her hair began to fall out, so she shaved it. Her husband, Steven Kendrick, laughed as he referenced his bald head and said they had matching hairdos at one point.
Steven Kendrick divvied her meds up into plastic bags that he would methodically mark with the times of the day she was supposed to take them. Taking the medication became a dreaded part of Pam Kendrick’s day. There were so many, she said. It became overwhelming. While she didn’t want to give up, she was tired and forcing the pills into her system was drudgery.
Steven Kendrick would often have to coax her into taking the pills. He was the only one who could. None of their six children or other family members could.
“My part in this was small compared to what she was going through, but this is what you do,” he said.
Pam Kendrick was nearing the end of her chemo when the side effects became fiercer. She became severely dehydrated. In July 2021, she lost 50 pounds. She could barely keep water down. If she was watching TV and a commercial for food came on, she’d have to turn the sound down and look away because the mere sight of food made her gag.
At times, she felt like she was an outsider looking in on what was taking place in her body. Her mind was in a different place.
“I thought, ‘Is this really real?’” she said.
By August, she finished her final round of chemo, but she wasn’t finished with the hospital visits.
Steven Kendrick, then the Augusta-Richmond County tax commissioner, had traveled about four hours away for a conference. He thought she was well enough for him to go, but while he was gone, she was admitted to the hospital. She had a perforated colon. She said doctors feared sepsis if surgery was not done immediately.
Steven Kendrick said he left the conference early with a couple of employees who were also at the conference and rushed back to Augusta, not arriving at the hospital until around 1 a.m. The hospital was on lockdown, and COVID protocols at the time restricted the number of visitors for each patient. However, Steven Kendrick wasn’t interested in following the rules. He only knew his wife needed him. He said he waited for someone to leave the building and open the door so he could use the entrance to find his wife’s room.
The dehydration and emergency surgery left Pam Kendrick weak. She spent the remainder of August, September and parts of October working to regain her strength.
“I had to learn how to walk again,” she said.
A physical therapist visited their home to help with her recovery.
Her goal was to be well enough to have a Halloween party for some neighborhood children, and she did.
By November, she was ready to return to work, but cancer treatment reared its head again. She had to undergo daily radiation for more than six weeks, leaving her with burns on her skin.
The day Steven Kendrick announced his mayoral bid, she was there, but people didn’t recognize her with her wig and mask and having lost so much weight. People she knew walked right past her without acknowledging her.
While Pam Kendrick is doing well these days and is back at work, the effects of cancer are still there.
Not only did it affect her body, but it affected her emotionally and mentally.
“I wasn’t one to get sick. I mean, I might get a cold once a year, and to be hospitalized, life changing, having to learn to walk again. It actually took my voice away for two weeks. And to have somebody take care of me instead of me taking care of everybody like I’m used to doing,” she said.
Even her sense of fashion has had to change, she said. She had to adapt to a different way of dressing.
She avoids clothing that shows her clavicle because she has burns on her skin there from the radiation. She also has a port, so she can’t wear fabrics that might let people see it, she said.
Steven Kendrick said his role in all of it was to be his wife’s main support. He became “Dr. Google,” he said. And stress was a no-no. He kept things like medical bills as far from her as possible.
He estimates that the total for her medical bills in 2021 was around the $2 million mark. Her federal insurance from her nursing job was the primary, but the insurance from the city of Augusta served as the secondary coverage.
When she missed so much work, he said he was the one going in to make sure her insurance premiums were paid out of pocket. Now as the deputy tax commissioner who is on unpaid administrative leave, he’s again making sure that his own insurance premiums are paid out of pocket.
Her insurance didn’t cover everything. Even in March 2022, Steven Kendrick said they are still receiving bills that he’s submitting to his insurance because the providers said they didn’t know they had a secondary insurance.
He can’t imagine trying to apply for new health insurance, he said.
Pam Kendrick said she has had the thought, “Suppose it comes back,” but the Kendricks consider themselves blessed.
“We got through all that,” Steven Kendrick said.
Charmain Z. Brackett is the managing editor of The Augusta Press. Reach her at charmain@theaugustapress.com
