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A few hours before he died on Aug. 24, Jim Dougan asked for his hospital bed to be wheeled to a window.
"He didn't have much of a voice at the end, but he told me he wanted to smell the rain one last time," said Rita Dougan, his widow.
The breast cancer caused Jim Dougan to lose 60 of his 220 pounds. He developed cancer in his skull, ribs and hips, causing considerable pain. His jaw weakened to the point he had to have all his teeth removed.
"My husband was never one to advertise his illness. He fought it as hard as he could for as long as he could, but quietly and on his terms. Ask how he felt and he'd say he was still on the green side of the dirt."
The 55-year-old Gibson County, Ind. woman wants to call attention to the disease, noting that most men don't believe they can develop it. Too often, Rita Dougan says, the cancer isn't detected until too late.
"I'm going to be at Evansville's Race for the Cure on the 19th at the Riverfront. I'll pass out T-shirts informing people that men aren't immune to the disease. If me being active can save just one man so he can enjoy his grandchildren later in life, then I've done my job."
She said one insurance provider balked at paying benefits "because the powers-that-be assumed it was strictly a female condition. That eventually got straightened out, but it just shows that even those in the health care community have tunnel vision when it concerns the disease."
Jim Dougan was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004 and had a mastectomy.
"A growth the size of a bread plate was removed from his chest. Jim was afraid I'd get worried, so he slept with a shirt so I couldn't see. We almost had to fight to get him to use a cane. And he never would use a handicapped parking sticker."
Jim Dougan worked as a welding supervisor, but his passion was hunting. He shot bear in Canada and elk in Montana.
"When he first got sick, he thought he hurt himself going up and down the deer stand," Rita Dougan recalls.
The cancer went into remission for a time but returned in 2006. A stage 5 evaluation means it's terminal. Dougan's surgeon pronounced him a 4.5.
"That was information Jim didn't want to hear," she said. "He always took the view that someone else always had it worse. He'd apologize to me, saying he wished I didn't have to go through the ordeal."
They were together 28 years. Each had been married once before. Jim Dougan was 64 when he died.
"He could fix anything with his hands. Overhaul engines. Build furniture. You name it. I was right there with him. We did everything as a team."
Rita Dougan dabs at moist eyes.
"I miss him so much."
She rarely left her husband's side during his last days.
"I probably went home twice to get fresh clothes and then I came right back. When the nurses asked why I stayed around so much, I'd squeeze Jim's hand and tell them we were still making memories together."
(Garret Mathews is a reporter for The Evansville Courier in Indiana.)
