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Richard Sandomir on Kimmy's diary.
January 23, 2012
Carter’s Poignant Turns, Chronicled by a Daughter
By RICHARD SANDOMIR
Like her father, Gary Carter, Kimmy Bloemers was a catcher. She played at Florida State. He spent most of his Hall of Fame career with the Montreal Expos and the Mets.
The two extended their sports bond in 2009 when Carter was named the baseball coach at Palm Beach Atlantic University, where Bloemers has coached the women’s softball team since 2007.
But the joy of coaching on the same campus has given way to the somber reality of Carter’s inoperable brain cancer, a diagnosis he received last May. Since then, Bloemers has been writing an intimate family journal on CaringBridge.org about her father’s illness and how the Carters are being sustained by their Christian faith and his competitive fire.
The diary’s 55 entries, spread over 121 pages, create a continuing narrative of heartbreak and spiritual uplift.
In the postings, Bloemers writes with the exuberance of her famously upbeat father — a devoted younger daughter who says she copes with the grimness of her father’s decline with Biblical quotations, music, family meals and the generosity of friends and neighbors.
Late last May, she described her wish that the next day’s biopsy on her father’s tumors could be performed in a crowded baseball stadium, rather than in Duke University Medical Center’s Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center.
“Dad loves to hear clapping, cheering and lots of enthusiasm,” she wrote, “so let’s get rowdy for ‘The Kid.’”
Several days later, after Carter, who is 57, was found to have glioblastoma, an aggressive, fast-moving cancer, Bloemers’s sadness at the physical changes visible in her father was tempered with the hope of a miracle.
“Team Carter believes that dad will hit one out of the park,” she wrote. “We are pouring the ‘unknown’ and fearful thoughts to Jesus and not allowing Satan to get the best of us.”
Then, last Thursday afternoon, Bloemers wrote “with tears” about the appearance of “several new spots/tumors on my dad’s brain” on a magnetic resonance imaging exam.
One of his doctors was to visit the family that night, but she has not provided an update since that day.
“The Lord is my strength and shield,” she wrote at the end of her posting. “I trust him with my heart.”
Despite her father’s condition, Bloemers, her sister, Christy, and her brother, D. J., were able to accept the “You Gotta Have Heart” Award for him from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America on Saturday night at the New York Hilton.
In serving as her family’s health-news emissary, Bloemers is following others who, through traditional methods or social media, have found a means to communicate the details of life-threatening illnesses.
The British-born essayist and atheist Christopher Hitchens wrote as vigorously about his cancer as he did about the myriad subjects that engaged him with a fury before his death last month.
During the 19 months he lived with the same type of brain cancer that Carter has, the former Yankees outfielder and announcer Bobby Murcer spoke regularly about his sickness, returned to work on a limited basis for the YES Network and wrote an autobiography that described his faith and his devotion to his wife, Kay.
“God has blessed us so much since I was diagnosed with this brain tumor, and so many blessings have come my way,” he said during an interview shortly before he died. “It’s changed our life for the better.” He died in July 2008.
Michael Douglas has used talk shows and other public forums to discuss his treatment for throat cancer.
And after Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie-Mellon, learned he had pancreatic cancer, he delivered what was called his “Last Lecture,” a direct talk about how to live. It became an Internet sensation and was expanded into a best-selling book before his death in 2008.
Although Carter has made some remarks about his illness, Bloemers’s account has provided a vivid, almost daily picture of a close, Christian family — Carter and his wife, Sandy; their children; three grandchildren; and two sons-in-law — coping with Carter’s debilitating treatments, physical therapy, hair loss, bloating mouth wounds, exercise, headaches, back pain, kidney stones, pneumonia, falls that tore his rotator cuff, blood clots and emergency room visits.
There have been exhilarating moments, as when Carter was healthy enough to make a two-mile nighttime walk with Sandy, when he was able to swim for exercise, when he took notes during a church sermon, or when his white blood cell count rose high enough for chemotherapy. One day last August, Bloemers wrote, “Dad’s tumors are 80 percent better!”
One night, the Carters watched all of his old commercials (Ivory, Pringles and 7Up — with Christy, a toddler, pitching to him). “He looked so good and happy,” Bloemers wrote.
Hank Aaron and Mike Krzyzewski have called, according to Bloemers. His friend and former Expos teammate Tommy Hutton has taken him for physical therapy. There have been disappointments that must have pierced Carter’s athletic pride as he has continued to coach his team. Last September, he threw batting practice, but not to his satisfaction.
“He tried a couple of times, and in his eyes, he had failed,” Bloemers wrote. “He talked with my mom and was saddened/disappointed that things are starting to be ‘taken away from me’ ... golf, throwing b.p.”
But when he coached a game a month later, she wrote that “he enjoyed calling the plays.”
“Dad absolutely loves to be the skipper,” she added.
Last month, Carter wanted to buy a Christmas gift for his wife. Bloemers drove him to a mall, but he was weak, fatigued and shaky and had to sit in a chair. As they left, Bloemers wrote, “the lady who sold me mom’s gift, pulled me aside and said she is adding my dad to her prayer list and hugged me. She saw the tears in my eyes and realized that it meant so much to hear that.”
Then, on Christmas Eve, with D. J. Carter dressed as Santa Claus, Carter stumbled and fell hard into a glass window, then onto the floor, injuring his shoulder. An M.R.I. later revealed a complete tear of his rotator cuff that will require surgery.
“Tough night for Dad, “ Bloemers wrote. “Thankfully, the pain subsided as time went on.”
In the entry that preceded news that more tumors had been found in her father’s brain, Bloemers described his joy at this year’s first practice for his team.
“Now that baseball season has begun, his spirits have lifted a bit and I believe he is excited to see his team,” she wrote. “His weak body limits his physical involvement, but the fact that he wants to go and still teach his players is beyond amazing.” |
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