Tales from the road: Back from the brink

May 27, 2015
Pella, Iowa-based Matco Tools distributor Mark May refused to let stage IV Hodgkin lymphoma take his life or his livelihood.

Like most mobile tool distributors, Mark May spends the majority of his days in gear and on the go.

The Pella, Iowa-based Matco Tools distributor knows the success of his business depends on his ability to run his route and attend to his customers. So when he was diagnosed with stage IV Hodgkin lymphoma in 2011, May had to cope with the fact that both his livelihood and life were in jeopardy. However, a combination of cutting-edge cancer treatments, a positive attitude and more than a little help from family and friends allowed him to recover from his illness and continue on with both his life and his career.

“I was pretty determined that I wasn’t going to let it beat me,” says May, whose cancer has been in remission for two years now. “I wasn’t going to let it ruin my life and ruin the business I had worked so hard to get and keep, even though there were days I would stand in my truck and say ‘I don’t know if I can keep going.’”

May underwent chemotherapy to treat his cancer and was declared cancer-free six months after his initial diagnosis. Three months later, however, the lymphoma returned. Doctors promptly prescribed a more aggressive treatment plan, which even included a stem cell transplant.

“They basically took me to the edge of death,” says May.

The procedure involved subjecting him to “super-heavy doses of chemo,” May explains, adding that doctors checked in on him every 15 minutes or so “and tried to kill all the blood cells in my body.” They also took healthy stem cells out of May and froze them. After a week of chemo, doctors put the stem cells back into his body. May spent the next three-plus weeks recovering in a hospital.

“I think that was one of the hardest things when I was in the hospital,” he says. “When you lay there in the hospital and can’t do anything, I hated it.”

Doctors informed May he would be able to return to work in three to six months, but he was back on his route and in front of his customers just three-and-a-half weeks later. During his time in the hospital, his son Ross, also a fellow distributor, put in a wealth of time and effort to help with the business during his father’s battle with cancer. In addition, a kind-hearted neighbor named Joe Michaels ran May’s route while the Matco distributor recovered in the hospital.

“He really helped me out, and he’ll always be one of my heroes in life,” says May of his neighbor. “Just because of the sacrifice that he made, and he didn’t take any money.”

Now two years later, May is definitely back in gear and on the go. While the illness and treatment have taken a toll on his body, he is unwilling to let aches and pains slow him down. Since his cancer went into remission, May has obtained his pilot’s license and bought a plane, which he regularly flies from Iowa to a second home down in Missouri.  He has also made it a goal to watch his young grandson play basketball someday. Simply stated, he has a lot of life left to live.

“From the beginning for me, it was always like ‘I’m going to fix this thing, and I’m not going to let it beat me,’” says May, who credits his faith for helping him through his illness. “That was my attitude. I know it sounds weird, but I never lost a night of sleep.”

More than anything, though, the experience reinforced his belief that one should never quit, no matter what the circumstances are.

“There are a lot of things that can put you down in life,” he says. “But you have to just keep trying and never give up.”

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