The Spears family is, unfortunately, tied together by a long history of fighting cancer. Sisters Judy Spears and Janet Taimanglo have lost multiple siblings and their mother to the diseases, which is why the family is willing to take extremely long flights. It’s nearly a full day from Guam to Virginia, but they do it to support Judy through her fifth decade of fighting cancer.
The Army Fisher House at Walter Reed’s Forest Glen Annex gives them all a safe place to stay.
“We’ve been here before for her,” Janet said. “It’s worth the flight. I don’t want any regrets. We’ve lost too many siblings, and our mom, and I don’t want any regrets.”
Judy has defeated cancer three times and is looking good for a fourth victory. She had an outpatient procedure in 1982 to remove cervical cancer, a rushed flight just before Christmas 1991 from Germany to Walter Reed Army Medical Center to fight slow-growth non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, and then a mastectomy to defeat breast cancer.
The family has supported Judy each time, with all six of her siblings even volunteering to donate bone marrow to her in one fight, though none of them turned out to be a match.
Now, Judy’s going though a long course of daily radiation and chemotherapy that wreaks havoc on the body.
This fight is hard for family reasons, too, since Judy’s husband, an Army veteran, passed in 2016, so it’s all the more important to her to have her family from Guam.
Janet’s husband Melvin Cruz came with Janet, despite the long travel time.
“Yes, 22 hours of air time,” said Melvin. He has quickly become a supporter of the Fisher House program that has made him, Janet, and Judy all more comfortable despite the climate differences for him and Janet and Judy’s daily treatments sapping her strength.
Melvin said, “The people of Guam need this. When I go home, I will tell everyone, ‘Research Fisher House. Stay there if you can, if you need it.’”
The Fisher House allows them all to focus on Judy, and Janet goes with her on every hospital visit and is looking forward to Judy ringing the bell that signals the end of her treatments.
“I have a video of her every day,” Janet said. “We’re going to make a scrapbook for her.”
The family’s first focus is on Judy, though they also try to give back to the house and the community within it.
“We try to clean up, water the plants, cook for ourselves and make extra for other people,” Janet said.
“We have to be careful, think about the other people here when we cook, because we like our food really spicy,” Melvin said. “Not everyone can have that. So we cook chicken, ribs, a little fish, we make potato salad.”
“We’re the Fisher House greeters, we do the meet and greet. When someone new comes and the manager isn’t here, we give them the tour. We show new families the cupboards, the fridges, where they can store food, find coffee, all of that, where the laundry is,” Melvin said.
Their eagerness to help has led to other guests seeking them out.
“Another guest, he couldn’t figure out how to do the laundry,” Janet said. “The dryer was beeping and he couldn’t figure it out, so he came and got us, and it was just that the door wasn’t completely closed, it was beeping, so we went in and took care of it.”
Since this interview, Judy has completed her course of treatment and is recovering.
