Coffee with All4Cure - Rick

In 2010 I noticed a bump on my right cheek that didn’t go away. After a doctor’s visit and tests I was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Just before this diagnosis, I had decided to run for the Oregon state legislature as a representative of our district. It was tough to campaign and be treated for cancer. I think it was fortunate that I lost the race. After a surgery and 19 radiation treatments I was cured. Then eighteen months later, during a yearly scan, it was discovered I had Multiple Myeloma. Before these diagnoses, I had never been sick before--I’d never even broken a bone as a kid. It was a shock to me to realize that I have cancer and deal with that mentally. My wife Ellen is the one who lets me have my 5 minutes of depression before she verbally whaps me and says ‘Okay, that’s enough. Now let’s do something positive.’ Ellen stayed with me in the hospital every day while I was in a coma. She’s saved my life twice from health disasters and has supported me in my career as well as my current illness and I couldn’t have done any of the things I have mentioned without a life partner like her.

I met my wife Ellen when I was 20 years old, she was a year-and-a-half younger. She was also born in New York and our families moved to California in the same week of 1956. Both of us went to the same high school in Los Angeles but we met on a blind date through an ex-brother-in-law of mine. Our date was the first week in December and I asked her to marry me that New Year's Eve. We were at a party at my parents’ house when I asked her and she knew I had a bit to drink so she said ‘Ask me in the morning if you still feel the same way,’ which I did. We didn’t know each other really well, but we got married a year later. We have been married now for 56 years. We’ve had our ups and downs but it started great and it is still great now. She is extremely intelligent. Our life has always been a shared thing together in a partnership. We started a farm together, each of us had careers in the same Oregon community college system, and we’ve made pretty much every decision together in a true partnership. She’s a wonderful woman with an immense sense of right and wrong who takes care of me through thick and thin. To have someone who cares for you and gives up a part of their life for you is unbelievable.

After my wife and I retired from my job as a college president, we planted a 2-acre vineyard on the 25-acre Oregon farm we moved to in 1971. During the time we had the property there was always work to do to keep me busy. Growing wine grapes is very intensive. Our grapes, when mature, went to a local winery for Syrah wine. In 2012 we decided to make and sell our own wine. In 2012 we made 125 cases of Syrah wine. Unfortunately, my multiple myeloma made tractor work, bending, and lifting difficult so when we decided to move to Portland and sell our farm, that meant giving up our license to make and sell wine. However, we brought some of the remaining wine cases with us, which we share with friends as well as enjoy ourselves.