By John Perry

The last 15 days of Lewis Hunter’s life were a horror.

At 62, he had been a carpenter in the Aviation Department for more than nine years. As Friday, May 28, 2004, wore down, Hunter, not feeling well, left the Bush Intercontinental maintenance shop to go home and lie down.

Still home on June 12, he lay dead.

Kathy, his wife of 41 years, was with him during the nightmarish interim.

Hour after grim hour, she had stayed at his bedside, re-tucking bed sheets, stroking his head and speaking soothingly as her husband hovered in a semi-conscious twilight.

Nothing else could be done. He had exceeded the outer limits of medical salvation.

Thirteen family members paid their last respects. Before their astonished eyes, his body shrank to half its original weight and twisted into grotesque positions. At the devastating end, his face was barely recognizable.

“By the time he died, there wasn’t an organ in his body that hadn’t had a tumor,” Mrs. Hunter said.

What happened?
“It was when he was toweling off after a shower,” Mrs. Hunter remembers. “I saw a strange-shaped black mole on his back. I told him to have it checked by a doctor. But he didn’t. At least not at first.”

But a few weeks later, the mole began bleeding. Hunter went to Dr. Thomas Watts, his primary care physician at Kelsey-Seybold Clinic. Watts took one look and immediately sent him to a dermatologist who quickly referred him to Kelsey-Seybold chief of surgery Gilchrist Jackson for a biopsy.

Surgery confirmed the diagnosis: advanced melanoma – the deadliest type of skin cancer. Advanced melanoma is notorious for invading lymph nodes, then using them to race through the lymphatic system until they attach to an organ.

Trying to stop the cancer cells prowling Hunter’s lymphatic system, Jackson removed 32 lymph nodes.

But the melanoma had already metastasized into two brain tumors.

“I have all the respect in the world for Dr. Jackson,” Mrs. Hunter said. “He did all he could. I guess it was already too late to stop the spread.”

Jackson referred Hunter to oncologist Elihu Root for laser and chemotherapy treatments at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital.

Despite physicians’ best efforts, the cancer continued to ravage vital organs, metastasizing its way through Hunter’s immunity-suppressed system.

New tumors appeared behind the stomach lining, in the lungs and liver, horribly hopscotching ahead of medical intercessions.

Treatment options became severely limited.

Yet Hunter’s spirit remained intact. Knowing his days were numbered, he returned to the carpentry shop.

“He had a lot of courage,” said Kris Boudny, Hunter’s supervisor, who is taking the drug Tarceva in his own battle with cancer.

“Lewis was a role model as well as a model employee.”

The events leading to Hunter’s death began when he was a youth growing up on a Midwestern farm. On sunny days, he removed his shirt and baked his upper torso as dark as the Kansas topsoil he tilled.

“He remained a country boy at heart. He loved being outdoors,” Mrs. Hunter said. “Wish we’d known more. Wish we’d acted sooner.

“I’d give anything to have my husband back. Anything.”

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Human Resources benefits assistant Mark Kasten knows the damaging effects of the sun’s rays. He’s had four surgeries to remove malignant melanomas. Photo by John Perry