By KAREN L. WILLOUGHBY, Managing Editor
POLAND – Nuisance alligator hunter Ronnie Guy endured two regimens of chemotherapy for his follicular lymphoma.
But the cancer came back a third time, like an alligator surfacing from a bayou’s murky waters, and Riverview Baptist Church in the Poland community near Alexandria responded with love that radiated like the dawn of a gorgeous summer’s day. The members raised about $14,500 after expenses to help pay for the non-traditional cancer treatment Ronnie and his wife Terri Guy decided to try.
“We prayed for a miracle,” Terri Guy said. “I told several in the church, ‘you’re that miracle.’”
Church members sold 1,800 tickets at $6.50 each (donations made up the rest) for a barbeque chicken half that included dirty rice and baked beans. Twenty men of the church and others from the community cooked the chicken under the direction of Otis Monroe, a local caterer, who also made the dirty rice. Outlaws restaurant donated the Styrofoam containers. Women of the church made a variety of desserts, which were available for an additional donation.
“Everyone we talked to said it was the best barbeque chicken plate they’d ever had,” Pastor Matt Palmer said. “We were very pleased with the quality of the meal, and we were overwhelmed by the response of the community.”
Riverview did not meet for Sunday morning worship the day of the barbeque, Aug. 8. Most everybody was involved in one way or another with the barbeque. It was a case of the church being the church, Palmer said.
“I define ministry as meeting needs; they [church members] really stepped up and met the need,” the pastor said. “Their motivation for meeting that need is grounded in the cross and Christ’s love for us. … We are supposed to love and encourage our brothers in Christ, and we saw fit to do it in this manner.”
The treatment Ronnie Guy received at Oasis of Hope, a Christian-based hospital in Tijuana, Mexico, did not remove the cancer as they had hoped, but they still consider the $18,500 it cost to be “money well spent,” Terri Guy said. That’s about what their out-of-pocket expenses were for Ronnie Guy’s treatment in the U.S., not including the high-cost premiums of their self-employment health insurance.
The fact that the church where perhaps 100 people participate in Sunday morning worship raised such a major chunk of their expenses continues to boggle her mind, Terri Guy added. “This has been a tremendous blessing of God,” she said in a voice that echoed her continued amazement at God’s providence and the church’s blessing.
“A doctor in Dallas earlier this year basically gave Ronnie a last-case scenario,” Palmer said. The Dallas physician recommended a stem-cell transplant, using Ronnie’s own stem cells, but said if Ronnie’s cancer returned after the transplant, the only option would be a donor stem cell transplant, a much riskier procedure that came with no guarantee, and which would be the ‘end of the line’ of treatment options.
Guy had met a naturopathic physician in 2009 while hunting for a recalcitrant alligator in Avoyelles Parish. He bags 80 to 140 a year in central Louisiana. The doctor asked about the hunter’s chemo-bald head and told Guy if ever he wanted to try something other than chemotherapy, he had a suggestion, said Terri Guy. When the cancer returned in 2010 and the Guy couple decided against a stem cell transplant, her husband called the doctor, who suggested Oasis of Hope.
“I started doing a lot of research,” Terri Guy said. “This type of cancer is very hard to get rid of; it’s a type that recurs easily and … even with the technology we have, we cannot detect every cancer cell. Cancer cells rapidly divide, so if even one is missed, the tumor can quickly grow back.”
The couple decided to see if Oasis of Hope could get rid of Ronnie Guy’s cancer. They determined to put the $18,500 cost on their credit card and “hope for the best and pray for a miracle,” Terri Guy said.
They were blessed by the Christian serenity that permeates Oasis of Hope, and by the education they received there that was in addition to intensive bouts of oxygenated vitamins C and K, which taught them better nutrition to put Ronnie Guy’s body in a more alkaline state. Cancer thrives in an acidic environment, they learned. Sugar is not good; it seems to feed the cancer because it boosts the production of insulin and other hormones that stimulate the cancer’s progress and block the body’s ability to rid itself of cancer cells.
When the Guys returned to their country home near LeCompte, however, the pain began anew.
Ronnie Guy’s tumor grows on his spine. “It hurts,” Terri Guy said. “It started spreading down lower on his spine, causing pain in his legs.” Radiation solved the problem for now, though her husband has lost 40 pounds and is weak as a result.
“Everything has risks,” Terri Guy said. “[Oasis of Hope] worked out to be the right place for us. … You have to trust God.
“We want to get the treatment that will enable Ronnie to continue doing the things he loves,” she continued. That includes hunting alligators. The biggest one he’s come across in six years of contracting with the state to hunt nuisance alligators was 13 feet and 3 inches long. It was in an oxbow of the Red River, near Marco. (He caught a 13’1” alligator in the Little River, near Cloutierville.)
“That’s where he’s gotten most of his big ones – on old Cane River, or the oxbows off Red River,” Terri Guy said. He’ll find them on someone’s front porch, or in a ditch. They’ll get in small ponds on people’s property. He’s caught two or three in the Red River that have eaten people’s dogs. Dog owners would be out there, throwing duck dummies into the water to train their retriever. Once, twice, and then the dog is gone.
Though Ronnie and Terri Guy are Christians who have grown closer to the Lord through the medical ordeal they continue to endure, they have no desire to be “gone” any time soon.
“We’re just trying to stay healthy in every way we know,” Terri Guy said. “You have to take charge of your own health. It’s up to you to be positive, to trust God, and do everything you can do. You have to use your own intelligence and do what you can for yourself. I have learned quite a lot in this experience.”