By Brian Mozey
Contributing Writer
The horn of the Beaver Bus sounds and Pam Terres’ eyes open to the size of watermelons and her facial expression is similar to a child opening a favorite present on Christmas morning.
Her attitude changes when she’s able to watch her daughter, Emma, play hockey for Bemidji State University.
Her leg pain disappears. Her hand pain disappears. Her cancer disappears.
In those two hours, Terres does not think about her battle with the disease. All she thinks about is how Bemidji State is going to win and how much fun her daughter is having on the ice as a Division I hockey player.
“Going to the hockey arena allows me to think about more important things rather than cancer,” she said. “I focus more on Emma and the team’s performance than myself. I love when hockey season comes around.”
Terres spend most of her childhood in Willmar and calls the west central Minnesota community her hometown. She met her future husband, Mike Terres, while she was in college and working at the Holiday Inn in St. Cloud. They were married in 1992, on the Fourth of July, and will mark 25 years of marriage in 2017.
She worked as an elementary teacher in the Minneapolis Public Schools for more than 22 years. Terres loved teaching and was sad to leave her students, families and colleagues. She wishes she could go back to work every day. Being a teacher is one of the greatest joys of her life, she said.
On Jan. 4, 2011, her world flipped upside down. Terres received a phone call that day from her doctor, informing her that she had chronic lymphocytic leukemia. The first reaction wasn’t tears, but rather an interesting question.
“After he told me I had chronic lymphocytic leukemia, I asked him how to spell the disease,” she said. “I wanted to make sure I could research it and say it correctly to my friends and family.”
After getting the spelling of the word, she shed some tears. Then she asked one simple question: “What do we do now?”
It’s been nearly a six-year battle for Terres, but her philosophy toward the disease has inspired community members in New Hope to continue the fight, to be positive and show people she will never give up.
“Pam has too much to fight for to give up now,” said Cara Croonquist, Terres’ friend. “Heaven’s not ready for that mouth of hers.”
Since the beginning, Terres used Facebook as a place to vent and express her feelings on good and bad days. Her posts are largely inspirational and give a feeling that her disease will be defeated. Even though she might have a bad appointment or test, she goes to Facebook to describe her emotions and affirm that she has a support system to help her.
After hearing the news that she had cancer, Terres did not call her husband or her two children, but rather went to buy “The Hungry Caterpillar” stuffed animal and a book for her to read to her kindergarten class.
That night, she came home and told her husband the news. He had been holding out for a better outcome and was crushed. He also knew that their family needed to be together now more than ever before.
“I try to make her day as good as possible by helping in any way,” he said. “Our family is in this battle together and there’s no way of breaking us apart.”
The couple broke the news to their daughter, and their son, Sam. It was a difficult time, but Emma Terres said they knew their support had to be solely focused on their mother. She and her brother took that awareness and support to their favorite place, the ice arena.
Both played hockey for Armstrong High School when their mother was diagnosed.
Emma Terres was in the middle of her freshman year and dedicated her season to her mother. She put her mother’s initials on her hockey sticks.
“I put it on my hockey stick because it allows me to think of her every time I either pass the puck or take a shot at the goal,” she said. “It also pushes me to be the best I can be on the ice because if my mom can fight through this long battle, I can battle through a tough game.”
As for Sam Terres, he’s more reserved and stays quiet with the situation. He currently lives with his parents and does whatever he can around the house to relieve stress for his mother.
“It was tough to grasp the fact that my mom had cancer because you never think it’ll happen to your family,” he said. “I’m just glad we’re a close family and we know we’re all here for each other through the ups and downs.”
After a little more three years of fighting leukemia, Terres was diagnosed with melanoma, between her toes on her right foot. It is common for people with this type of leukemia to get a secondary cancer.
“It was devastating news to hear about after progressively getting better and having to restart the battle,” her husband said. “All we had to do was grab a donut and continue another day.”
The couple has developed a donut tradition while on this journey. If Terres has a disappointing appointment or hears bad news about the treatment process, she’ll give her husband a look which informs him that it’s donut time.
They go to a donut shop for two maple frosted donuts and eat the donuts on the way home as a way to relieve the stress. Terres starts to feel a little better after eating donuts and says, “donuts make everything better”.
They admit that, sometimes when they receive good news, they also make a stop at the donut shop. Luckily, a Dunkin’ Donuts opened just a couple blocks away from their home in New Hope.
“They’re too good to pass up,” Terres said. “It definitely takes your mind off the negative news for a little while, which is always nice to have as a distraction.”
The doctors decided to remove the two affected toes and that ended the melanoma in Terres’ foot. Several months later however, she learned that the cancer had spread to her lungs. Then, it spread to her brain.
Terres said she did not know how to handle that news.
“I told Mike earlier in this battle that if it reaches my brain, I’m done with the fight,” she said. “I didn’t think it would come this early in the process, so I couldn’t give up on all the progress and especially to my children.”
That’s the primary reason Terres continues her battle. She wants to be there for her children and husband.
“Pam wants to see the different phases of her children’s lives,” said Kathleen Duffey, her friend. “From graduating college to getting married to watching her children have their own children. I know she wants to be a grandma.”
Those are the goals for Terres, therefore, she’s focused all of her attention on her children and their activities. For their son, it’s being a hockey coach, so the parents go to his hockey games and cheer not only the team, but more specifically for the coach. As for their daughter, the family will travel to watch her play hockey. The meaning of traveling is different in the eyes of the family because they will go to any game to support their daughter.
As for Emma Terres, the rest of the family will travel to watch her play hockey for Bemidji State. The meaning of traveling is different in the eyes of the Terres family because they will go to any game to support their daughter.
Most of her games are around the state of Minnesota, so the Terres family will hop into the Beaver Bus and head to the game. Pam wanted to watch Emma’s games because it’s rare to have a child that plays a sport in college, so she wants to take every moment and watch her play the sport she loves.
“It’s one of the greatest feelings in my life to see my mom, dad and brother sitting in the ice arena and supporting me game in and game out,” Emma said. “All I need to see is a thumbs up by my mom and I’m ready to go for the hockey game.”
Terres knows her time is precious, so she picks out the things that mean the most in her life. Her children and her husband are on top of that list because she loves them.
Throughout the past year, Terres has realized that if it’s not cancer that kills her, it’ll be the medications from the battle. The type of leukemia she has is one that sticks with a person for the rest of their life and the medications given are too intense for the body to continue absorbing.
She’s embraced the fact that she’s going to die with the disease still in her body. When these thoughts get into her head, she’ll find her close group of friends and get her mind in a different setting.
“My philosophy is to live each day to the fullest because you never know when everything will be taken away from you,” she said. “It’s hard for me to ever look at a day and show signs of negativity because these days mean too much to me.”
Terres understands she will not accomplish her dreams of beating cancer completely, but she feels she has beaten it in some ways. Her doctors told her that at the beginning of this process they would not have guessed she would be alive five years later.
The doctors do not know how Terres continues to beat all the odds, but her friend, Karen Saaf, knows she is the toughest person and will not take “no” for answer. As for Terres, she knows the battle continues, but she appreciates all the support she has received from the community, friends, family and the amount of doctors that have stuck by her side for the last five years.
Terres appreciates all the support she has received from the community, friends, family and the doctors who have stuck by her side for the last five years. She knows that she might not be in the generation that finds the cure to cancer, but she also knows there has been progress. She knows a cure will come, and her hope is that no one ever has to experience a battle with cancer.
“I know that I might not actually beat cancer because I’ll probably pass away with it in my body, but I truly believe I’ve beaten cancer,” she said. “I’ve broken the standards made for me by my doctors and it’s been truly a blessing. I hope other people can understand that with a little bit of determination and a positive attitude in any situation, you can overcome any obstacles that may come your way.”