A few days after this article originally ran, we had Relay For Life 2011. When we met at the field to select campsites, I was very surprised that I was the second person there. Dwight was there waiting for us. I had no idea that he would be there, given his recent surgery.
We asked Dwight to lead off the Survivor Lap, which he did. He then proceeded to spend the night. You would have never known that he, had been sick a day in his life. The next morning, as we were about to walk the last lap, Dwight took to the track. We told him that it was only fitting that he lead it too, sense he had led off the first lap. A little over half way around the track, he and one of the ladies decided to run the rest of the way. I was totally in shock, he was finishing the Relay with a bang. You can imagine the lady’s surprise when we finished the lap and she learned of his recent surgery.
Dwight lost his battle with cancer. Dwight was a Survivor in every sense of the word. Relay For Life will be missing a very special person this year. But he’ll be there, in many of our hearts. We were all blessed to have been able to work with such a kind, caring man, and call him our friend.
In May of 2008, he was diagnosed with Bladder Cancer and had surgery at Duke. For the next three years, not only was Dwight at Relay as a Survivor, he has been Team Captain for the Latta Baptist Church team.
In January of 2011, Dwight was at the first Relay Team Captain’s Meeting. He told us that his Dad had been diagnosed with Bladder Cancer. Latter in January, he went to Texas and spent the week with his dad, Charles Bedinger. His dad passed away in January from complications from the cancer.
While in Texas, Dwight began to have health problems himself. In February, he was diagnosed once again with cancer. This time it was in his right kidney, and it was a different type of cancer from his original cancer. On April 1st, again at Duke, Dwight had his cancerous kidney removed.
In March of 2011, his daugher-in-law also lost her father who was fighting prostate cancer.
Dwight was a survivor in every sense of the word. Monday, May 16 of that year, Dwight was back for another Relay meeting, this time to pick a site for his team.
He was not able to do a lot of physical work yet, and he was just able to take a spot and sit back and enjoy the Relay for awhile.
He did not have all of his strength back physically yet but his strength to fight was as big as anybody’s.
