Love story surrounds Elkville man's fight against brain cancer

Sept. 3, 2012 was like every other day for Nathan Barnes-Atterberry of Elkville. He thanked God for another new day even after losing his job to a back injury in June 2010 at GS Metals in Pinckneyville, now called Cooper B-Line.

A granddaughter was asleep on his arm in the living room.

"Then I had this fuzzy feeling," he remembers. He had never felt that way before. He walked into the bathroom at their home on First Street in Elkville.

"I felt like everything was caving in," at the onset of a seizure which a doctor at Memorial Hospital first diagnosed as a stroke.

When EMTs arrived at their door he was combative and had to be restrained. He went into a coma and was on a ventilator for two and a half days.

He had a history of a blood platelet imbalance and wife Lisa --with two years of nurse's training--knew that a blood thinner could kill him. Instead, he was suffering from an incurable malignant tumor of the brain called glioblastoma, a small cell cancer that spreads quickly.

This was the toughest test of their marriage in 27 years.

"This is the same cancer that Ted Kennedy died from," he said as he sat at the kitchen table at their home in Elkville. A baseball-sized tumor was removed from the back of his brain. It was a Stage 5 cancer "and doctors told me they removed everything they could find." He was out of the hospital in four days. The life expectancy after this diagnosis is ordinarily two years. But doctors have told Atterberry he isn't "ordinary." In fact, a month after his Dec. 12 surgery doctors at Southeast Missouri Hospital in Cape Girardeau have set up a regimen of radiation and chemotherapy treatments for a full week--one week a month--over the next six months. "It was the first case like this that Southeast had ever seen."

For the time-being his wife has given up her job as a registered home child care provider to care for their own family which includes three grown daughters Ashley, Rebecca and Rachelle. One of them goes into the hospital this weekend so doctors can induce labor.

His insurance premium alone is $1,300 monthly out of pocket.

Through it all the family is strong and hopeful. They don't know if this story is going to have a happy ending. But through it all-- "in sickness and in health"--their love has never been stronger.

On Saturday, Feb. 23 there will be a benefit dinner from 5-8 p.m. at the Elverado High School with catering by Dr. Grammy's Garden, LLC. Meals are $8 for adults and $5 for children and will include Italian beef, salad, chips, dessert and a drink or for children a half-sandwich or a hot dog, chips, dessert and a drink. Entertainment will be provided by Big Elvis Rock & Roll show. There will be a live action at 7 p.m. a 50/50 drawing and cake walk. To make a donation online you can go to: http://www.giveforward.com/for papabear