HAMILTON, Ohio – Bill and Bev Roe, owners of Pedro’s Angus, had a recent serious cancer scare. It has a happy ending. They tell the story with incredible humor.

The first thing Bill noticed was a hard lump on his back, behind his belt. The doctor thought it was nothing to worry about. Then in May 2022, they were putting out hay for their cattle when Bill started having a hard time breathing.

“I’m always on the tractor,” said Bill, and Bev takes up with … “And I’m doing the work.”

Bill continued, “The first thing she thought was that I was having a heart attack. She said I needed to go to the doctor.”

Bill wanted to finish putting the hay out but Bev called, and thanks to a cancellation, got a doctor’s appointment. “He went straight from the tractor to the doctor,” Bev said. “I was a mess,” Bill added.

The doctor said something was wrong and sent them to the hospital for scans and X-rays. His lung was 80 percent filled with fluid. The doctor said there was no good way of putting it, the situation was bad. That lump on his back was a tumor and it was pushing against his heart. He needed to go to the emergency room for a thoracentesis.

“They take a needle about this long (demonstrating with hands held arms-length apart),” Bill said. “I said, ‘What are you going to do with that thing?’ ‘We’re going to stick it in your back.’”

It drained the fluid from Bill’s lung so he could breathe. He had another thoracentesis scheduled four days later but in three days he could hardly breathe. They kept him in the hospital overnight.

“I told the nurse I can’t breathe; it is putting pressure on my heart and my heart is starting to have a problem,” Bill said. The nurse said the doctor would take care of him when he got there in the morning.

“The only way I could breathe was to stand up and lean back,” he said. “I finally pulled out all of the plugs that they had in me; I knew that would set all the alarms off. They came running in and took me downstairs. They gave me another thoracentesis so I could breathe again.”

They inserted a catheter and gave Bev brief instructions on how to drain the lung.

“They said remember if you take out too much fluid you will collapse the lung and he will die,” Bill said.

They finally had an option to see an oncologist and Bill had a biopsy. He had cancer in his lymph nodes, and spots all over, besides the now tennis-ball-sized tumor on his back.

“They started him on immunotherapy,” Bev explained. “He was getting a treatment every three weeks and he was getting worse. I took him for an IV and then to see the oncology surgeon about removing the tumor on his back.”

The surgeon took one look and said Bill had to be admitted to the hospital. The tumor covered too big of an area; they couldn’t remove it.

“The doctor said you need to be in the hospital,” Bill said. “I said ‘No, I want to go home’ and they said ‘No, you need to be in the hospital.’”

Admitted to the hospital and in his room, all of a sudden there was a lot of activity.

“Everything was blinking and flashing,” he said. “The nurse called downstairs and said, ‘Could you check things out here? They don’t look right.’

“The next thing I know the room is filled with people,” Bill said. “They take my blood and they’re rushing me down the hall and they’re saying ‘faster, faster get him to cardiac; take the freight elevator it is faster.’”

He had Atrial Fibrillation (AFIB) and ended up in intensive care. His heart was in trouble from the stress on his body. He had lost 60 pounds in six weeks. They did a scan and the tumors had doubled in size in eight weeks. They suggested calling the family in to say goodbye.

But then the doctors started him on new medications. That was the beginning of the turnaround, Bev said. Bill began to feel better. Having lost his sense of smell, they were both amazed when one day he could smell the carrots that Bev was eating.

“Once when I was in intensive care I was weak and I was wiggling my toe,” Bill said. “The nurse came in and asked if everything was okay. I said, ‘I am jogging. When I get home I can jog and I want to stay in shape.’”

Bill went into the hospital on Monday and went home on Saturday. He wasn’t jogging but he was able to walk.

During this period, they were doing nothing on their farm. Their herdsman, Michael Everett, took over running the operation. Before the cancer scare, the Roes had planned a family reunion for Aug. 7 with about 150 people coming. They thought they would have to cancel.

But everyone kicked in. Everett, and Morgan Gelhausen, his fiancee, landscaped the yard, arranged for tents, tables and chairs, and catering. People from their church came and served food. A neighbor, Dave Anderson, mowed the grass. Bill stayed inside during the reunion but family came in and visited.

Bill’s improvement continued. He is now back to working on their farm.

“When Mr. Roe came to see us he was in a pretty bad way,” said Dr. Faisal Adhami, oncologist. “The melanoma had been quite advanced. It is one of those cancers that for many years had been a difficult cancer to treat.”

The cancer had metastasized quickly in different places, Adhami said. It had done quite a bit of damage.

“We have had a lot of advancements in the treatment of melanoma with immunotherapy and target therapy and it has kind of put the script on its head,” Adhami said. “It’s one of those things where you have to get through the initial part of treatment. His initial part of the treatment was quite difficult; he had to scrape the bottom of the barrel. He was pulling himself through by the sheer force of his will and the support of his wife. He proved his grit and as he did that the medicines started to work and it really was a miraculous recovery.”

Many area churches were praying for Bill, including the Catholic nuns in Oldenburg, Ind. The Roes have tried to visit them all to thank them. When Bill learned about a woman being treated for breast cancer, he began writing her a note every week. She called to thank him and, passing it on, he gave her the name of someone else with cancer and asked her to send that person a note.

Bill attributes his healing to a combination of good doctors, good drugs, laughing a lot, and lots of prayer. “My wife helped me and you just never give up,” he said.

Added Adhami, “He feels like his normal self; he is still on treatment but he is doing fantastic with it and enjoying life. He has a new-found appreciation of how precious it is.”