Making a connection

Resident uses social media to reach out and help cancer survivor

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SILVERHILL, Alabama — During a time of unrest and social distancing, one local man used the power of social media to reach out and show kindness to a cancer survivor.

Silverhill resident James Long Jr. said he was driving in Fairhope when a pink ribbon license plate that reads, “ImFree” caught his attention.

“I’m a big fan of vanity plates,” he said. “I see them, and I just want to know, what’s their story.”

When he saw the plate that day, since a close member of Long’s family is also a breast cancer survivor, a different thought also came to mind.

“I just thought, ‘somebody should do something to help her,’” he said. “Then I thought, ‘hey, I’m somebody. I can do something.’”

So, he pulled up to the vehicle at a traffic light and snapped a picture.

Later that day, he posted it on social media with a message, “Anyone know her? She’s a mail carrier in Fairhope. I love her license plate. She’s cancer free and we would love to celebrate with her and detail her car!”

DIG Detailing

In April Long, who also works in retail at Coach in the Tanger Outlet Mall in Foley, started his own detailing business, DIG Detailing, a business inspired by years of helping his father prepare cars for local car shows.

One day, he offered to detail the car of a co-worker and pretty soon others were bringing their cars to him to detail.

“Most of the work we do out of our home in Silverhill,” he said. “People bring me their cars and I detail them, or we can go to them, pick the car up, then bring it back when we’re done.”

Lisa’s story

Lisa Mccauley says she is lucky to be alive after being diagnosed with cancer in 2011.

“When I was first diagnosed, it was devastating,” she said. “At first I said I didn’t want treatment. Both of my parents had died with cancer and I really didn’t want to have to go through what they went through.”

But, she says, she went with her sister, who is an oncology nurse, to talk to her oncologist, and was encouraged by what he said.

“I am so grateful to him. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be here today,” she said. “He said he wanted to cure me, not just prolong my life, which is what happened with both of my parents.”

The decision was made to treat the cancer aggressively. Doctors performed a double mastectomy and she immediately began 16 weeks of once-a-week chemotherapy treatments, followed by 16 treatments with one every three weeks. After that she had 37 radiation treatments and was prescribed a daily medicine that she took for five years.

“You have to be cancer free for five years in order to be officially cancer free,” she said.

But she didn’t wait the full five years to declare herself cancer free.

“I first purchased the plate in 2015 when I bought the Jeep,” she said. “I decided that I was going through a transitional period and wanted to do something to show that I was starting a new life.”

Coming together

Long’s post on social media quickly caught fire.

“I think it was shared about 70 or 80 times,” he said. “It was still being shared even after we reached out to her, people just loved the story so much.”

Mccauley said it was about two days after the initial post that she just happened to be on Facebook and saw the post.

“At first I didn’t realize it, but then it struck me, “that’s me, that’s my Jeep,’” she said. “I also thought it might be one of my nieces or nephews messing with me, but the more I looked the more I realized, ‘I don’t know this person. Why would he be reaching out to me?’

 “Words just cannot express how grateful I am for what they did for me,” Mccauley said, “and what a wonderful and kind person I think this young man is. I love it when he said, ‘I am somebody,’ it kind of makes me feel like he was saying I am somebody too.”

It took about three weeks for Long and Mccauley to coordinate their schedules, but on Thursday, Aug. 20, Mccauley brought her Jeep to DIG Detailing for the full treatment, cleaning and polishing inside and out.

Long also replaced Mccauley’s worn out seat covers, purchased dog treats because Mccauley was known for giving them out to pets along her route, and one of his friends, whose mother is also a breast cancer survivor, donated an Olive Garden gift card for Mccauley.

“It’s all just so overwhelming that they would do this for me,” Mccauley said. “Someone who was a stranger I now consider a good friend because of a simple act of kindness.”

 

Showing kindness

It was reactions to his own health scare that prompted Long to reach out to Mccauley.

In June, when the Coronavirus pandemic was in full swing, Long said he went to the doctor with chronic back problems.

“I was told that if I didn’t change my lifestyle, I would end up having to have back surgery,” he said. “I just didn’t want to end up like that at 35 years old.”

So Long completely changed his diet, began an exercise regimen and in five weeks, he lost over 15 pounds.

“At the time, we were staying at home, so a lot of people just hadn’t seen me in a while,” he said. Their reactions were shocking.

“I just couldn’t understand why they couldn’t just be happy for me,” he said. It was then that he shared with his wife Leah that he had the idea of reaching out to others to show kindness instead.

That was just days before his first encounter with Mccauley.

“It was definitely on my mind the day I saw her,” he said. “Call it what you want. Call it fate. Call it destiny. But it definitely had everything to do with timing.”

Paying it forward

Three years after being declared cancer free, the struggle within Mccauley’s family against the dreaded disease is not over.

“It’s bittersweet,” she said. “I’m happy to be cancer free, but I still think about my parents and miss the fact that they are not here to share it with me. I also have a brother in Atlanta who is currently going through clinical trials because he has been told that he is terminal (in the final stages of a cancer diagnosis) and is hoping that his participation will help save someone else.”

But after the kindness shown by Long, his family and the crew at DIG Detailing, she said she is determined to “pay it forward.”

“I don’t know yet how I’m going to do it,” she said. “I believe that when the opportunity presents itself, I will know, and I will act on it.”