The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
by Joy Swearingen, Quill correspondent
"You've got to keep up your own spirits. You just can't let it get you down."
That is how Don Scanlan has approached his 11-year battle with cancer.
Don is one of the cancer survivors who will be celebrated during the annual Hancock County Fights Cancer block party on the courthouse square in Carthage from noon to 5 p.m. on Saturday June 5.
Don, his wife Dyna, and their family operate Scanlan and Sparrow Trucking Inc. south of Dallas City. When he was diagnosed in 2010, cancer became part of the Scanlans' way of life.
Dr. Santiago in Fort Madison first made the diagnosis, Stage 4 Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia, CLL, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow. Symptoms are fever, fatigue, bruising and infections. Don went to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., for a second opinion.
"Everything they told me in Rochester was what Dr. Santiago had told me in Ft. Madison," Don said. With a chronic cancer, his doctor at Rochester told him he could go a long time without being treated.
"My doctor in Fort Madison said a patient he had doctored for 20 years had never gotten any worse. Well, after a couple years, all of a sudden I started getting worse."
Don got his first round of chemotherapy in 2012. He did pretty well for a few years, but then he was back in Fort Madison Hospital.
"I nearly died that time," Don said.
Dr. Moyes from Iowa City happened to be in Fort Madison at the time. Don's doctor called him in.
"He said you have to get him to Iowa City," said Dyna. "I told him we doctored in Rochester, but he said Don wouldn't live to get to Rochester."
He was placed on a ventilator for five days and then started to improve.
"I liked my doctor in Iowa City. He was talking to the doctor in Rochester," said Don "Everything they did in Iowa City they would have done in Rochester. It was much closer. A lot easier on my family."
In 2015 and 2016 the doctors tried oral medications, but those made Don very sick and he ended up back in Iowa City. It took a while to decide that the problem was not the cancer but the cancer pill. IV chemo treatments were more successful. During this time, Don was still working as much as he could.
"I got along pretty well for a couple of years, except every time I got a cold it turned into pneumonia. So I ended up in Iowa City for several days at a time," said Don.
With his weakened immunity, warned him to come to the emergency room if he ever gets a temperature of 100.4 degrees or higher.
"I can change in two hours. I may have just come off a bulldozer and then suddenly feel bad. We've learned not to put it off," he said. He was airlifted once, just because he waited.
"In 2016 I think I was in a ‘give up' mode, but still trying to keep my head up high. We could only hold it off for a year or so at a time," said Don.
In summer, 2019, Don collapsed from a blood clot in his lung. In 2020 he was in and out of the hospital seven times for a total of two months.
"That was the worst. We couldn't see him because of Covid," Dyna said. "A male nurse called in June after he had been there for six weeks, and said, ‘You've got to come in because he's dying.' That broke my heart."
Dyna brought him home. With home health nursing care he regained his strength.
"By September and October I got better enough I was back on the tractor and backhoe. I drove the rock truck for six weeks for the kids because all their drivers got Covid. There was nobody else to do it," he said.
He took out a good-sized timber later in the fall. Staying as active as he can is important to Don.
"I have been so close to death it isn't funny, but I guess you try to prepare yourself. It's all in your own mindset, I think. It's been hard on my family, not just me."
Don has had many reasons to stay alive. They got a new great granddaughter in 2017, and their granddaughter was married last August. He was weak, but he made it to the wedding.
Don's been in treatment so long his first doctor has retired. His new, younger doctor is trying some different approaches that have cut the pills he takes from 33 to 17 pills a day.
"He keeps telling me to hang on, there are new treatments discovered every day," said Don.
With 11 years of ups and downs, Don and Dyna are in a good spot now. They go to Iowa City for a check up every two weeks, and every four weeks he has two infusions. One builds up blood cells and immunity, and the other is an antifungal treatment.
"We have been blessed with great kids," said Dyna. "They will call and say, ‘How's Dad?' because they know he can be fine one day, and in the hospital the next."
Family and friends kids organized a drive-by on the highway past the Scanlan home in the spring of 2020. Led by county deputies, over 100 cars drove by with signs and greetings.
"You can get to feeling sorry for yourself. But go up to Iowa City and spend a day with me," said Don. "You don't have to go very far to see someone who's worse off. It really bothers me to see those little kids.
"I try not to feel sorry for myself. I can tell we have had a lot of good prayers sent our way."
Don Scanlan and his wife Dyna