LAHARPE — April Colborn isn’t big on discussing her woes.
It’s why she and husband Bob were initially reluctant when approached by friends hoping to host a fundraiser to benefit the couple, both of whom have been diagnosed with cancer within the past year.
“It’s not because I don’t want anyone to know,” she explained. “It’s that I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me.”
It was only after her friends’ persistence — they can be stubborn, too — that the Colborns agreed.
On Friday, the Iola Elks Lodge will host a benefit, starting with a taco dinner at 5:30, followed by a live auction with scores of donated prizes at 7 o’clock, and culminating at 7:30 with a raffle drawing for a wood pellet grill and smoker donated by Iola High School’s Class of 1988.
“I don’t know if I can express how thankful we are,” April said, citing the individual efforts of organizers Kelli Frazell, Shannon Zoglmann and Jenna Sprague. “These kids have worked so hard at this.”
THE COLBORNS’ troubles began last September, when Bob, 69, — a retired lineman for the City of Iola and a retired special forces veteran — began experiencing severe bouts of heartburn and nausea.
He went in for a colonoscopy, which after about eight weeks of study, led to a liver cancer diagnosis, brought on by cirrhosis and hepatic encephalopathy.
Six months of immunotherapy have shown marked improvement for the cancer.
“Bob’s cancer isn’t technically in remission, but the cancer has shrunk enough that he can undergo maintenance treatment and go back for quarterly MRIs,” April said.
The problem is the damage the cancer has already done to the liver.
“The liver failure is still in play, however, which is really hard for me,” she continued. “He just can’t do what he once did.”
IT WAS partially because of her dedication to her husband, and her already jam-packed schedule that April often neglected her own well-being.
She figures she’d known for the better part of 18 months that she, too, likely had something wrong.
Part of her reasoning was that as a self-employed executive home director — a fancy name for a home-caregiver — she was working without health insurance.
“I just wasn’t feeling well,” she said.
