Building a miracle: Community comes together as man overcomes terminal diagnosis
Published 1:29 pm Monday, December 12, 2016
A year ago, Yvonne Vanderslice wasn’t sure if her husband, Rick, would still be alive today. (Reporter Photo/Keith McCoy)
Rick Vanderslice overcame a terminal cancer diagnosis to enjoy a new home with his wife, Yvonne. (Reporter Photo/Keith McCoy)
From left, Yvonne Vanderslice, Rick Vanderslice and Werner Beiersdoerfer visit in the Vanderslices’ kitchen. (Reporter Photo/Keith McCoy)
The Vanderslices’ new home replaced a dilapidated house the couple had lived in for decades. (Reporter Photo/Keith McCoy)
It took only a few months for volunteers and professionals to design, plan and build a new home for the Vanderslice family. (Reporter Photo/Keith McCoy)
Scott Masters, center, helped spearhead the effort to build a new home for Rick Vanderslice, left, and Yvonne Vanderslice when Rick was diagnosed with cancer in 2015. (Reporter Photo/Keith McCoy)
Yvonne and Rick Vanderslice relax on the front porch of their newly built home in Alabaster. “We’re out here all the time,” Yvonne says. (Reporter Photo/Keith McCoy)
Devastating news
The family still vividly remembers the day in October 2015 Rick’s physician at a local no-cost health clinic delivered the news.
Rick had not been feeling well for several weeks, but the family’s financial situation at the time did not allow them to pay for a doctor’s visit. As a longtime construction worker, Rick had fallen on hard times as the area’s building market was still struggling to recover from years of economic decline.
After learning about the free health clinic, Rick scheduled a visit to determine the cause of his illness. After running a few tests, the doctors at the clinic immediately admitted Rick to Shelby Baptist Medical Center in Alabaster, where doctors performed a biopsy on a Wednesday.
By Friday of the same week, physicians confirmed the worst.
“It was called incurable cancer because it was spread all through his body. It wasn’t just in one spot,” Yvonne said softly. “I asked the doctor, and he just said ‘It’s ugly.’”
A team of nurses accompanied the doctor as they entered the room to share the news with Rick.
“I didn’t know I had cancer, but I knew I wasn’t right,” Rick said, reminiscing as he rested in a recliner in his nearly brand new living room. “When they told me, it was like a peace came over me.
“The first thing I told them was ‘I don’t want to know how long I have to live,’” Rick said. “Only one person knows how long I have to live, and that’s God.”
Yvonne, however, did learn of her husband’s medical outlook.
“They told me he only had a few months left to live, and I started boo-hooing. I had to leave the room,” Yvonne said. “But I somehow knew it was all going to be OK in the end.”
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