GILBERTSVILLE – Karen Capuano said goodbye to her husband on November 4th of last year.
It was an unimaginable day of emotion – the day she watched him take his final breath and the day the couple celebrated their 41st wedding anniversary.
“It’s a horrible disease” Capuano said of her husband’s terminal diagnosis of esophageal cancer. “Like so many others, I watched as my husband choked to death while at the hospital and there was nothing we could do to help him.”
It was two years ago when Al Capuano’s symptoms of what seemed to be acid reflux turned more severe. “He kept saying his throat was bothering him,” Capuano recalls – he would ask if I was putting more spice in our food and he would say he felt like everything was getting caught in his throat.”
“One morning he could not eat his breakfast,” she recalls. Lunch was just as difficult but by the time dinner came around, he began choking. Doctor appointments led to scope procedures which led to biopsies and an eventual diagnosis of cancer.
First, Al underwent surgery where a feeding tube was inserted. This was followed by radiation treatments five days a week for six or eight weeks – then chemo. “He was so sick, he finished the first round but the second he just couldn’t do,” Capuano said.
From surgical procedures to medications, Capuano recalls how her husband transformed into someone who lost his zest for life.
“His body went through so much in those two years,” she said. Then at 9:53 a.m., after an excruciating nine final long days of suffering, Al Capuano took his final breath with his wife of 41 years by his side.
“That’s not the way he wanted to go,” she said of the comatose state he was in. “You don’t know until it’s too late,” she reiterates of the early symptoms her husband had for more than 30 years.
“He always cleared his throat and made that sound after eating, but it wasn’t until it was too late that these other more severe symptoms appeared.”
Capuano says she hopes her story helps others to take symptoms often overlooked as ‘minor,’ far more seriously.
Today Capuano is on a mission to educate and empower others to seek screening and diagnostic testing. “This can be prevented if it does not go undiagnosed.”
Hoping to bring local awareness of this devastating disease, Capuano has planned a balloon release for April 11th during Esophageal Cancer Awareness Month.
She says she plans to send periwinkle and white balloons into the sky draped with white ribbon in honor of those currently fighting the battle and those who have bravely fought before.
The event is set to take place at Ponderosa Restaurant in Draffenville at 3:30 p.m. on the 11th.
According to the American Cancer Society, cancers of the esophagus are usually found because of the symptoms they cause. Diagnosis in people without symptoms is rare and usually accidental because of tests done for other medical problems.
Notably, most esophageal cancers do not cause symptoms until they have reached an advanced stage, when they are harder to treat. Symptoms include trouble swallowing, hoarseness, chronic cough, vomiting, hiccups, pneumonia, bone pain and bleeding into the esophagus.
Unfortunately, the overall 5-year survival rate is just 4 percent after surgical resection, with an unacceptable surgical mortality rate of almost 30 percent. The overall 5-year survival rate is only 6 percent after radiation therapy.
If you would like to help Capuano with the balloon release or would simply like to be in attendance to help support the cause, please contact Capuano at 270-205-1559.