Layoff/cancer prompt husband to enlist

MILWAUKEE — 56 days ... 55 days ... 54 days ...

Chelsea Caudle began signing her text messages this summer with a countdown. At 14 years old, she knew no better way to express what was coming. Day Zero was to be the day in October when Dad would leave their home in Watertown, Wis., for Army basic training in Fort Jackson, S.C.

He was leaving, even though Mom was sick with ovarian cancer. Even though he had been at her side through two long, miserable rounds of chemotherapy. Even though she now faced the likelihood of a third.

In fact, Dad was leaving because Mom was sick.

In March, he was laid off from his job as a raw materials coordinator for a plastics company called PolyOne, where he'd worked for 20 years. His severance package had provided several months' salary, but by August the paychecks were winding down. Soon the cost of his family health coverage was going to triple, then a few months after that, nearly triple again. They needed coverage so Mom could fight her cancer.

Dad's solution: a four-year hitch in the Army.

So Chelsea counted down the days to his departure.

The tradeoff was that Dad would be far away when Mom needed him home, when Chelsea needed him, too. He would miss all of her high school years. The band performances. Prom.

Mom and Dad are Michelle and Bill Caudle, high school sweethearts now 40 and 39, respectively. They have three children: Chelsea, the youngest; Alysha, a 21-year-old working at a nearby Holiday Inn; and Little Bill, an 18-year-old ex-high school wrestler.

The Caudles are not fond of politics. Michelle and Bill have paid little attention to the shouting this summer over health care reform, and they have not gone to any of the town hall meetings. They are well aware that politicians and interest groups would like to trumpet their story or dismiss it to score points in the debate — and they would just as soon avoid all of that.

“We're not activists,” Michelle said.

But this year the national story of lost jobs became their story. And the saga of families losing health insurance was about to become theirs, too.

Except that Bill wouldn't let it.

True, he had been interested in the Army for years. And he could always request an emergency leave to come home if Michelle's condition grew dire Army regulations allow this if a family member's death is imminent.

But for weeks before enlisting, Bill had sought other options. He revised his résumé. He answered “help wanted” ads, then watched the companies cut workers instead of hiring them. He interviewed for one job that would have paid $13 an hour — less than half of what he was making at PolyOne. He didn't get the job.

Finally, on May 13, his 39th birthday, he signed the Army papers.

Two weeks later, Michelle Caudle sat in the office of her doctor, Peter Johnson, at Aurora Women's Pavilion in West Allis, Wis., going over her latest tests. Just six months earlier she'd celebrated the end of her second chemotherapy treatment.

Now, the tests revealed tiny “spots,” or changes on her abdomen, neck and lungs, and the measure upon which cancer hopes rise and fall, the CA125 number, was climbing.

“I could lie to you but I'm not going to,” Johnson told Michelle.

Although he could not say for certain the cancer was back, this early sign pointed to that possibility. The doctor compared her cancer to a chronic disease that would never be completely vanquished.

Michelle broke down. For three years she'd been nurturing her hope in the face of uncertainty.

“I'm not going to beat this,” she said.

The PolyOne layoff had been announced in March, months before it took place. Though the news was jolting, Bill thought maybe it wouldn't be so bad. He'd wanted a job a little closer to home than PolyOne, which was 30 miles away. Now he could find something better.

But it had been a long time since he applied for work or sat for an interview. What do you tell people about yourself?

After sending out résumés, he got the feeling it didn't much matter. Even companies that had advertised for staff were changing their minds.

The president's stimulus bill was helping laid off workers pay for the health coverage they had while employed. Between this assistance and Bill's severance package from PolyOne, the Caudles initially paid $136 a month for their coverage.

But in September, when Bill's severance package ended, they would pay $497.

In January, when they would be on their own: $1,370.

Bill needed a job with health benefits.

The Army would solve their health coverage problem. In years past he would have been too old, but in 2005 the age limit for enlistment was increased from 35 to 40, and a year later it was raised again to 42. The tradeoff would be his absence from home.

In the end, although he risked leaving Michelle to fight cancer on her own, Bill chose the Army. He signed on for a job as a signal support systems specialist, a soldier who works with communications equipment.

“Seventy percent of the reason is for the insurance,” said Bill's mother, Marguerite Hemiller. “He told me, ‘I've always wanted to do something for my country and I have to help Michelle.'”

On Aug. 27, Michelle's summer ended. She sat with Bill in a private room in Aurora Women's Pavilion waiting for the official word on her latest blood tests. The doctor's office had called to tell her that her CA125, the cancer measure she hoped to keep low, had risen from 17 to 66.

“Odds are he's going to tell me it's back,” she said.

Johnson entered the room and crouched beside Michelle's chair. There was cancer in her abdomen, he said. “There's some areas in the lung, too.”

Michelle's eyes went watery. The nurse reached for a tissue.

“You know what? I brought my own,” Michelle said, and her smile let everyone know it was OK to laugh. For a moment they did.

Johnson said there was no single area to go after surgically, but Michelle had responded well to chemotherapy. His soft voice outlined the chemo plan. “I'd suggest we start fairly soon,” he said. Right after Labor Day.

Michelle bowed her head and Johnson leaned toward her.

“I'm sorry,” he said.

During the car ride back to Watertown, Michelle told Bill there was one thing she wished she could do.

“I'd like to be a grandmother. I'd be a really good grandmother.”

Michelle's mother, Sharon Hutchins, and mother-in-law Marguerite Hemiller have accompanied her to her cancer treatments. Hemiller, a nurse for 27 years, remembered that during the first months of chemo, Michelle would stand in the parking lot crying, not wanting to go inside. Now, Hemiller felt conflicted about her son's decision to join the Army.

“One half of me says, ‘Go.' The other half says, ‘You'd better stay,' “ she said. “I know he's got to do it. He's got to get that insurance.”

For Chelsea, the separation came sooner than she had expected.

Her dad was not scheduled to fly to basic training until Oct. 7, but a day earlier he had to report to the recruiting office where a van would take him to Milwaukee. The recruits would be driven to a hotel in the city so that early the next day, they could be processed, sworn in and flown to their base.

Bill's family would not be there on the 7th. Hard enough to face one farewell. No one had the stomach for a second.

If all goes according to schedule, Bill will finish basic training in mid-December and Michelle still in the midst of chemo. She hoped to make it to his graduation.

Separation wasn't the family's only misery scheduled for Oct. 6. Hours before Bill left, Michelle was to receive her next dose of chemo.

The blood tests were not good. She was not healthy enough to be poisoned and would have to skip a week.

So, on a rainy morning, everyone, including Bill's mother and stepfather, waited in Watertown, watching the clock tick closer to 1 p.m. and his appointment at the recruiting office.

Less than an hour remained. Bill hooked up the camera to the TV and they watched a slide show of images from the past year. Here was Little Bill at his high school prom and graduation, and Chelsea at confirmation. Here was the Fourth of July parade, Chelsea marching with the band and holding the flag. Here was the trip to the Great Smoky Mountains — the cabin, four-wheeling with Little Bill, horseback riding with Chelsea.

“This is me dying,” Michelle said, smiling at a photo of the climb up Clingmans Dome.

“You made it,” Bill said.

When the slide show returned to Little Bill's prom, the family stood up to go. Bill grabbed his backpack. The long goodbye moved to the recruiting office.

The van was late. Michelle straightened her husband's jacket and hugged him. She talked about the last few months, how strange it had felt to have him home during the day instead of away at work. It would feel stranger still not to have him around at all.

“I'll find out how many times I say, ‘I don't know. Ask your Dad. That's your Dad's department,' “ she said.

Just before 2:30, the van arrived.

“Butterflies are coming back,” Bill said, excusing himself for a last trip to the restroom.

The driver checked IDs, consulted his clipboard, then eyed Bill and the other recruit.

“You ready?”

Chelsea and her Dad hugged. It happened so quickly; all she could say was: “Bye.”

In the parking lot, tears streamed down Michelle's face. She held Bill near the van, unable to find any words at all.

“I love you,” Bill said. “I'll call.”

And then he was gone.

Early the next morning, Bill Caudle learned that he would not be going to Fort Jackson, S.C. He was headed to Fort Knox, Ky., instead. He would be half as far from home — 475 miles instead of 950.

The moment he was processed at Fort Knox, his Army health coverage kicked in.