Survivor Takes The Fight To Cancer
February 27, 2017 at 6:51 p.m.
By Deb McAuliffe Sprong-
The motto on the back of Jimmy Bouterse’s T-shirt sums up his battle with cancer.
His battle led him to a cause that helps others fight theirs.
Bouterse, of Warsaw, got involved with Relay For Life four months after his diagnosis of stage 4 squamous cell carcinoma in February 2006.
Bouterse went to the doctor with a sore throat and was put on antibiotics. When there was no change after seven days, his doctor sent him to an ear, nose and throat specialist.
“That doctor took one look at me and said, ‘You’re going in the hospital tonight, and we’re doing surgery in the morning,’” he recalls.
Doctors removed Bouterse’s uvula — the conical bit of tissue at the back of the mouth — and did biopsies all around the base of his tongue. The surgery was followed by chemo and radiation, and Bouterse spent the next few months in and out of the hospital.
An oncologist mentioned Relay for Life during one of Bouterse’s stays in the hospital. “I begged my doctors to let me go,” he said.
During the Relay, cancer survivors take the first lap. Though Bouterse was hospitalized that day in June 2006, his doctor agreed to let him go for two hours.
Bouterse had a feeding tube and wasn’t strong enough to walk around the track, so he was helped up onto a flatbed trailer in a wheelchair and made his way around the survivors’ lap pulled by a farm tractor.
That first Relay “gave me the will to fight,” he said, “because there were many times I just wanted to give up.”
His fight continued the next few years. He had to learn to eat, talk and walk again. Doctor visits dwindled from every three months in 2007 to twice a year in 2008, then once a year. He’s now considered in remission.
Bouterse moved from LaPorte to Warsaw in 2007. He got involved with the Relay for Life in Kosciusko County after hearing it mentioned in a casual conversation in 2010.
He participates in the relay every year, and has a collection of purple Relay T-shirts to show for it. He’s been helping with media sponsorship for the Relay in Kosciusko County the last five years.
He encourages everyone to give generously to the Relay, because cancer affects everybody.
“We all have somebody — our family, our close friends — that have had (cancer) or are going through, or have passed,” he says.
Bouterse remembers one year when a mother and son were the only ones on their team. As each Relay team must have a member on the track at all times, those two alternated to walk entire 12 hours.
“She said when they were done they had so many blisters on their feet,” he said.
But Relay walkers know it’s worth it.
“There’s just a lot of good people involved, because they’ve been through it,” Bouterse said.
The motto on the back of Jimmy Bouterse’s T-shirt sums up his battle with cancer.
His battle led him to a cause that helps others fight theirs.
Bouterse, of Warsaw, got involved with Relay For Life four months after his diagnosis of stage 4 squamous cell carcinoma in February 2006.
Bouterse went to the doctor with a sore throat and was put on antibiotics. When there was no change after seven days, his doctor sent him to an ear, nose and throat specialist.
“That doctor took one look at me and said, ‘You’re going in the hospital tonight, and we’re doing surgery in the morning,’” he recalls.
Doctors removed Bouterse’s uvula — the conical bit of tissue at the back of the mouth — and did biopsies all around the base of his tongue. The surgery was followed by chemo and radiation, and Bouterse spent the next few months in and out of the hospital.
An oncologist mentioned Relay for Life during one of Bouterse’s stays in the hospital. “I begged my doctors to let me go,” he said.
During the Relay, cancer survivors take the first lap. Though Bouterse was hospitalized that day in June 2006, his doctor agreed to let him go for two hours.
Bouterse had a feeding tube and wasn’t strong enough to walk around the track, so he was helped up onto a flatbed trailer in a wheelchair and made his way around the survivors’ lap pulled by a farm tractor.
That first Relay “gave me the will to fight,” he said, “because there were many times I just wanted to give up.”
His fight continued the next few years. He had to learn to eat, talk and walk again. Doctor visits dwindled from every three months in 2007 to twice a year in 2008, then once a year. He’s now considered in remission.
Bouterse moved from LaPorte to Warsaw in 2007. He got involved with the Relay for Life in Kosciusko County after hearing it mentioned in a casual conversation in 2010.
He participates in the relay every year, and has a collection of purple Relay T-shirts to show for it. He’s been helping with media sponsorship for the Relay in Kosciusko County the last five years.
He encourages everyone to give generously to the Relay, because cancer affects everybody.
“We all have somebody — our family, our close friends — that have had (cancer) or are going through, or have passed,” he says.
Bouterse remembers one year when a mother and son were the only ones on their team. As each Relay team must have a member on the track at all times, those two alternated to walk entire 12 hours.
“She said when they were done they had so many blisters on their feet,” he said.
But Relay walkers know it’s worth it.
“There’s just a lot of good people involved, because they’ve been through it,” Bouterse said.
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