‘There is so much to be thankful for,’ says Rufus Riggs after radical cancer surgery

Rufus Riggs plans to spend his Thanksgiving Day in Texas recovering from radical abdominal surgery, but the Harris County resident is more than thankful despite a cancer struggle that has temporarily robbed him of his health.

“There is so much to be thankful for,” Riggs said late last week from the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, which happens to be in Harris County, Texas.

Those are the words of a man who had his bladder removed and will be forced to wear a urine pouch for the rest of his life. But they are also the words of someone who is looking firmly at the forest and not just the trees bending in a storm created by the dreadful disease.

“I could be in a position where I was Stage 4 cancer,” Riggs said. “As a result of what has happened to me, I am Stage 2 with excellent prognosis for me to have a normal life. That doesn’t happen to a lot of people with this type of cancer. Usually when they learn about it, it is Stage 4.”

In June, Riggs was diagnosed with small cell neuroendocrine carcinoma of the bladder. The doctors who treated him in Columbus had not dealt with it before. It is a rare and aggressive form of the disease.

To understand how Riggs looks at the world today, it is important to understand more about the Cataula resident, who will turn 75 on Christmas Day. A Louisiana native, Riggs is a retired Army command sergeant major and former director of the city of Columbus’ Public Works Department.

Since retiring from the city, Riggs has served as a volunteer in his church, Christ the King Catholic Church in Pine Mountain, and at Brown Bag of Columbus, a non-profit organization that helps feed the elderly.

During an interview with the Ledger-Enquirer in September 2016, Riggs talked about the importance of his volunteer work.

“I’m doing what I’m supposed to do. I firmly believe that,” he said at the time. “That’s why I’m here. That’s why God put me here, so I can do this work.”

The season changed this year and Riggs and his wife of 21 years, Sam, were forced to deal with the cancer. When their world shifted in June, the two of them weighed the options — which were limited because of the nature of the cancer.

“We did our research and found that MD Anderson had 26 cases of this type of cancer in 2016,” Riggs said. “No other cancer treatment center had anything close to that. So, the decision was easy.”

But they also had to make the decision to leave the comfort of home and company of friends in Harris County for an aggressive treatment protocol and a one-bedroom apartment in Houston, a more than 10-hour drive away.

“We packed the truck up for us to live here for a while,” Riggs said.

On July 11, a month after discovering the problem that was causing heavy blood in his urine, Riggs had his first appointment with MD Anderson doctors.

Riggs was the picture of health prior to cancer entering his life. His daily commitment to exercise and strength training helped make the decision to go through aggressive treatment easier, he said.

The chemotherapy treatment, which included the drugs Etoposide and Cisplatin, required hospitalization. For five consecutive days, Riggs would undergo six hours of chemotherapy treatment each day.

He began the four-step process, which required 16-day breaks between the chemotherapy, on July 19.

“Aggressive chemotherapy for a very aggressive cancer,” was the way Riggs looked at it.

Riggs completed the second round in late August, and he and Sam decided it was time to make a trip back home. The timing could not have been better as Hurricane Harvey was taking aim on Texas.

“We left the day Harvey hit the coast,” Riggs said. “I was feeling pretty good. I drove the whole way home.”

The storm and its aftermath delayed the next round of chemotherapy by a week, but it also gave them some time back in Harris County to regroup and prepare for the return to Texas and the treatment.

As Hurricane Irma was hitting Florida and Georgia, Rufus and Sam left Harris County to return to Texas and the other Harris County.

They returned to Houston in early September and completed the final treatment on Oct. 1, then returned home for a few weeks to prepare for the surgery, which was scheduled for Nov. 13.

Family, which has always been important to Riggs, has become especially vital during this time of need. He is the fourth of 10 children and has five brothers in the Houston area. One of his older brothers, Warren, despite losing his wife to cancer earlier this year, has been at Rufus’ beside during much of the struggle.

Ask about Warren, who is two years older, and Rufus tears up.

“We have been best friends all of our lives, to have him here and my wife means everything,” Riggs said.

Sam has been the constant in these choppy waters, Rufus said.

“I try not to lean on her any more than I have to,” he said. “In this journey, you don’t know how much you are going to need a person. If you lean on them too much to begin with when it is not necessary, it can become a burden.”

The illness has strengthened their bond, he said.

“We are very close, and our love is very strong,” he said. “But caring for a sick person wears on anybody. I try and lessen that on her the best I can and do what I can for myself. There are times she wants to do something for me, I will say, ‘No, honey. I can do it.’ And she will back off and let me do it.”

In this new chapter, Sam and Rufus have leaned on each other.

“It is amazing what you find to be rewarding and intimate when it involves your very best friend, especially when he also happens to be your husband,” she recently posted on her Facebook page. “Helping him bathe, scrubbing his feet and legs, giving him a shot, helping change the ostomy bag, giving him a foot/leg massage. I understand more completely now how he felt when he helped me bathe, shaved my legs, lotioned my back and legs when I had my hip surgery.”

Caring for each other comes with the territory, Sam said.

“When you care for someone you love, you find yourself able to do whatever is necessary, no matter what,” she posted. “Love is still the answer, no matter the question. Feeling thankful.”

Thursday won’t be a traditional Thanksgiving, but it will be a good one, Sam said. Riggs is still recovering from last week’s surgery and his new diet has not come easy.

“Rufus says nothing on the hospital menu sounds good, so I told him to tell me what sounds good to him and I will prepare it for him,” Sam said on Tuesday.

He requested chicken with cheese, mashed potatoes with cheese, and chicken noodle soup. He also asked that the hospital ice cream be replaced with Blue Bell.

After Riggs is released from the hospital, the day will be spent in the small Houston apartment they have called home since July.

“I will crank out some kind of Thanksgiving dinner for us,” Sam said earlier this week. “Whatever sounds good to him and that’s what we’ll have.”

But this day is not about the meal for Rufus and Sam Riggs. It’s about living life with purpose and being prepared for the best and the worst it can offer, Rufus said.

“I have tried to live my life in a way that if I die tomorrow, I would have no regrets,” Rufus said. “I tell my friends who say, ‘I am so sorry you have that cancer,’ I say to them, ‘Really don’t feel sorry because I know I will die, we will all die. That’s a given. The baby born today will die.”

When cancer calls, you look at your mortality, said Riggs, a Vietnam veteran.

“I am not afraid to die, and I am prepared to die when that time comes,” he said. “It doesn’t mean I will sit in a corner and feel sorry for myself and give up. I will fight as long as I have life in me, but knowing that dying is inevitable, there is no point in being afraid of it. You have to face it as a reality of life. And you prepare by the way you live your life every day. That’s how you treat people — how giving you are and how forgiving you are.”

This story was originally published November 22, 2017 at 2:26 PM with the headline "‘There is so much to be thankful for,’ says Rufus Riggs after radical cancer surgery."