South Carolina trucker with one lung still going strong
Sarah and Mike Tarbox pose together in celebration of his three-year victory over lung cancer. (Courtesy: Barr-Nunn Transportation)
Tarbox was diagnosed as having cancer in his left lung on Jan. 30, 2006.
By JERRY BREEDEN
The Trucker Staff
8/29/2009
Three years ago, Mike Tarbox of Chester, S.C., met and conquered the biggest challenge of his life: lung cancer.
“I’ve always enjoyed a challenge,” Tarbox told The Trucker in a July interview by phone. “But there was nothing enjoyable about this one. My life was on the line, literally.”
Tarbox was diagnosed as having cancer in his left lung on Jan. 30, 2006. That was the day Dr. Sarkis S. Derderian, of Palmetto Primary Care Physicians in Charleston, S.C., discovered that Tarbox’s left lung was collapsed. Dr. John Sutton, of Thoracic Cardiovascular in Columbia, S.C., performed surgery to remove the lung on May 11, 2006. Amazingly, Tarbox was back behind the wheel in August the same year and has been on the job ever since.
He has been a driver for 32 years, having started at age 20. He is employed by Barr-Nunn Transportation out of Granger, Iowa. His superiors and co-workers at Barr-Nunn supported him throughout the ordeal.
However, no one has been as supportive as his wife, Sarah. She said her husband “was out of the truck and had undergone three rounds of chemo. On Aug. 23, 2006, approximately 12 weeks after the surgery, he was passing a DOT physical and was back in the saddle again.”
When the trouble first began, Tarbox went to his family physician, Dr. Kirt Caton of Palmetto Primary Care Physicians at Charleston, S.C. “I thought I had a bad cold or the flu, but Dr. Caton sent me to the pulmonary specialist, who found an obstruction in the lung. It turned out to be squamous cell carcinoma.”
Tarbox said he had been a smoker since the age of 17. “I smoked a pack a day, give or take, and tried many quit-smoking programs. They helped some in that they slowed me down, but I never got really serious about quitting until November of 2005. That was when I quit for good. I quit primarily because the stop-smoking pills were really messing up my stomach. It got to where I worried more about the pills than smoking and, finally, I just decided it wasn’t worth it.”
The Tarboxes have no children, but they have a 170-pound Great Dane named Simon.
“You don’t take Simon for a walk,” said Mike. “He takes you for a drag-along.”
At the time of his diagnosis, Tarbox decided “to take the cancer head-on. I’m not a quitter and this was one challenge that I knew would really put me to the test.”
His oncologist, Dr. Phillip E. Baldwin, was more than willing to help Tarbox wage the battle of his life. He put him through a stringent course of chemo.
“I was in pretty good physical condition at the time,” said Tarbox. Before long, he was making such progress after his lung was removed that the doctors agreed he could be taken off chemo.
“Mine wasn’t the typical case,” he said. “The cancer in my lung was shaped more like a spider’s web than a solid tumor, according to the CAT scans. It wasn’t as well-defined as most tumors are.”
Even with one lung, Tarbox passed the DOT physical “with higher numbers than anyone would have expected. The right lung had been doing double-duty for a long time, which is why it was so strong when I took the physical to go back to work.
“My pulmonary doctor says only those who go too far know when they do,” said Tarbox. “It’s like a marathon runner. At first you get uncomfortable and your muscles just stop functioning. But the body will shut itself down before it allows you to really hurt yourself.”
Admittedly, Tarbox said he hasn’t the stamina he had before his medical malady struck. “Running a quarter of a mile now is like running a mile before. I just have to pace myself.
Asked what his main goal is today, Tarbox replied:
“I just want to live long enough to tap into my 401-K.”
The Trucker staff can be reached for comment at editor@thetrucker.com.
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