The little town with a big heart
Stuff reporter Jo McKenzie-McLean is overwhelmed by the kindness of her small community as people in Cromwell rally round after her shock cancer diagnosis.
Ican’t remember the last time I was inside a bank. It probably showed, as I walked through the automatic doors gripping a blue Tip-Top icecream container stuffed with cash.
One of two tellers at my bank’s Queenstown branch stared blankly at me as I told her I had money to bank. I looked like an overgrown child depositing her pocket money savings.
She pointed at a machine and said, ‘‘That’s where you can deposit your coins,’’ then added, ‘‘But it’s broken,’’ then returned to her blank-stare face.
I proceeded to tell her there was more than loose change rattling around in the icecream tub. I peeled off the lid with pride to reveal $1817 worth. Not just any money – life-saving money. I
‘‘If you want us to count that it will cost $3 per $100,’’ the other teller piped out from behind her plastic barrier.
I gasped – and not-so-subtly slipped in that this money had been raised for me by my community to help with nonfunded drug treatment for cancer.
Another banker came to sort out the apparent coin conundrum before the pair quietly took the cash and within a matter of minutes had it counted.
‘‘Would you like it in your cheque account?’’ they asked.
‘‘No, pop it in that account,’’ I said, pointing to the account I had stupidly tagged ‘‘Drug Fund’’ for sums that had been generously donated. I shouldn’t have been surprised when the bank called earlier in the week querying several ‘‘drug fund’’ deposits.
The tellers kindly waived the counting fee due to ‘‘the machine being broken’’. I thanked them and left, shaking my head at the ludicrousness of the experience.
Don’t get me wrong – I was grateful they waived the fee. But I was hurt they did not recognise what that money meant or the love that was in that humble tub.
For the past two months I have been blessed to see true acts of kindness on my doorstep (figuratively and literally as I have hardly left my house).
On January 28 my world stopped when a doctor in a sterile room told me I had bowel cancer, which had spread to my liver, and my outlook didn’t look good. Well, it stopped momentarily, then it plunged into a slow-motion whirlpool that swallowed me whole.
I arrived at Dunedin Hospital in the back of an ambulance with two other patients during a bedblock. I was in a panic, telling every doctor I met to ‘‘just cut it out’’. They were calm and caring
. . . and the talented Dr Deborah Wright – a colorectal surgeon who was the duty surgeon on that weekend – did so. She removed a tumour the size of a golf ball from my large intestine that had attached itself to my stomach. She also removed lymph nodes, two large blood vessels and two-thirds of my bowel – an area comparable to a slice of thick-crust pizza.
People told me mental attitude would play a big part in my recovery journey, but those early days in hospital were terrifying.
I was too scared to be left alone, afraid of where my mind would take me. As if the fear of dying wasn’t enough to keep me awake, a clock seemed to taunt me with its deafening ticks reminding me my time was running out.
But after surgery, something changed in me. I threw the clock in the wardrobe. No-one was going to tell me when my time was running out. I covered those paint-peeling hospital walls with my children’s pictures, and got myself out of bed. A few hours after surgery, I walked around the ward once, and the next day twice.
I even managed to stand on a set of scales I had noticed the previous day. But weight was the least of my worries – I was focused on the farts. When I did my first fart and passed my first bowel motion I was the first to scream in delight to the nurses because it meant my surgery was a success.
Day by day my room got brighter and some scared tears were replaced with happy tears as love started to light my hospital room and fill my heart.
One of my first visitors and dear friends from Cromwell burst through the door in a flurry to tell me that Cromwell ‘‘people’’ were already ‘‘onto it’’.
Drugs had me in and out of consciousness and I did not quite grasp what she was saying, but when I got home it started to sink in what she meant.
I was expecting to arrive home to disarray – I had left the place in shambles after heading to Dunstan Hospital a week prior.
When I opened the door, I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience. My house was clean, beds made, rotten food thrown out and replaced with fresh. I stood in my kitchen and cried.
Those happy tears have kept flowing. Unbeknown to me, a group of friends had formed a ‘‘Jo Fundraising Committee’’ and plans were afoot to help me.
Initially, I was reluctant to accept help. I live with my two young children, work full time as a reporter for Stuff and am financially independent. But it became apparent very quickly that I was going to need all the help I could get to access unfunded drugs I will need – if not to save my life, to extend it.
So, putting aside my pride, I started saying yes to offers of help. But never did I imagine the extent of the help given. People have turned up daily with meals, groceries, pamper packs . . . My dog gets walked, my garden gets done, a caterer has made me a special nut muesli (the oncologist has told me to eat nuts off trees), a local designer has made a ‘‘Jo sweater’’ to help raise money, while another woman auctioned her playhouse and raised $1100.
My neighbour has made me candles and sauerkraut, while another feeds my chickens.
Meanwhile, the committee has been meeting weekly and organised a quiz night recently that 130 people attended and raised $10,000. I masked up and, with chemotherapy drugs still pumping into me, went along. I can’t describe the overwhelming feeling I got knowing all those people were there to support me.
The energy, laughter and love in the room – it fed my soul and spirit. Other events are being planned including a black tie night, a ‘‘Sip, Shop, Support’’ fashion evening at Cloudy Bay, and an adventure mountain bike race through the town.
It’s the weirdest feeling to be going through the darkest of experiences but simultaneously to feel so uplifted. That kindness gets me out of bed with a smile.
My children see their mum being strong and happy, and that above all else is my priority. The community is teaching them to be compassionate. What a gift.
Many people have commented on the phenomenal support from a town of fewer than 10,000 people.
But this is a community that rallies around people in need. I’m not unique. A friend told me how the Cromwell community helped her family when their young daughter was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour.
‘‘The Cromwell community is like a safety net that closes in when times get tough . . . Cromwell is rare. I’ve never felt a community strength like it.’’
Cromwell might be small, but it has the biggest heart in the country. Thank you, Cromwell.