Screen printing keeps Season for Caring recipient with lung cancer focused on better days
In the months since Charles Richard’s stage 4 lung cancer diagnosis, he has found his strength in his wife and caregiver Nicole Richard. She has found her strength in him.
“You never know how you’re going to handle that news when it’s you,” said Nicole Richard, 52. “He’s accepting; he’s not mad at the world and God. … He does things even though it’s painful. … He tries to push through the pain and try to do things for himself.”
The Richards are part of the Statesman Season for Caring program, which helps hundreds of families each year through local nonprofit organizations. Austin Palliative Care nominated the Richards to the program.
One of the things Charles Richard, 50, continues to try to do for himself is screen printing. It's his passion and something he would do before his cancer diagnosis on days when he wasn't driving a tow truck.
One of his wishes is to receive a new laptop and a direct-to-film printer for his screen printing. Both are on the Richards' Amazon wish list. He also needs software, including Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.
For Nicole Richard, if her husband gets a break from treatment and she does not have to focus on being his full-time caregiver, she needs help with her résumé and possibly getting recertified to be a nurse in Texas or enrolling in an aesthetician program.
Charles Richard points to Nicole as the person who has kept him going through the “windfalls and setbacks” of the past 18 years they’ve spent together.
The Richards met in the Spokane, Wash., bar scene in 2005. They kept crossing paths. This mutual acquaintance. Then that one. One night, Nicole's purse was stolen at a sushi place, and Charles, who worked at a bar, found it behind a toilet he was cleaning. Everything was still there except her cellphone. Later, they crossed paths while at an employment agency. Charles asked her out. He gets chatty when he is nervous, a jokester. Nicole could play serious; she was caring and firm (Charles stopped drinking for Nicole). They moved in together soon after and were married in 2013.
Spokane was home for the couple, though they know better than to glamorize their lives there. At the towing company he worked for, Charles was on call seven or eight days consecutively. He slept irregularly. He worked 100-hour weeks. Nicole worked extensively as a licensed practical nurse. The Richards kept themselves afloat “day by day … paycheck to paycheck” and don’t remember having had much time for themselves.
The couple moved from Spokane to Austin at the start of 2020 so Nicole could take care of her father, who had kidney cancer. She wanted to be the one to care for him. She wanted to spend time with him.
With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic shortly after their arrival, Nicole decided not to work so as not to put her father at risk. This made the couple reliant on Charles' paycheck. He didn’t mind. He enjoyed his towing gig more than he had in Spokane. He had a boss who listened to him, who gave him a more reasonable schedule and cared for his well-being.
In June, Charles learned he had an advanced stage of lung cancer. For most of the month, he couldn’t walk because of the biopsy. He left the hospital in a wheelchair and gradually moved to a walker. The joint and bone pain from the tumor’s releases also kept him immobile.
He has since undergone chemotherapy treatments. After the third, he had lost 55 pounds because he “didn’t eat for eight days.” The extreme nausea, the stomach cramps and the prevailing taste of chemicals that covered his tongue made eating excruciating.
Caring for her husband has been the most difficult act of nursing Nicole has faced, she said. Emotions are higher, and the breaks don’t come as they normally would.
“You don’t get to go home and sleep,” Nicole said, in reference to the separation that usually comes with professional nursing jobs.
With Charles too weak to work and Nicole committed to providing him care, the Richards have gone without income since May and run through their savings, including what they had made on their Spokane house, where they lived together during their last 15 years.
The couple sold their car to keep up with payments. Family and friends have chipped in what they could. The Richards have begun to receive federal disability payments, which help but aren’t enough.
The family needs help with rent; gift cards for H-E-B and Walmart for groceries, medication and gas; legal help to explore bankruptcy options and estate planning; cremation services; and chiropractic services for Nicole’s back pain.
To find out more about the Richards or to donate an item on their wish list, contact Austin Palliative Care, a subsidiary of Hospice Austin, at 512-397-3360, option 3, or online at www.austinpalliativecare.org.
About Season for Caring
The Statesman will be sharing the stories of all 12 Season for Caring families throughout the holiday season. Find more stories and information at statesman.com/seasonforcaring. You can donate online or use the coupon on Page 2B and mail it to Austin Community Foundation, c/o Statesman Season for Caring, 4315 Guadalupe St., Suite 300, Austin, TX 78751. Make checks payable to “Statesman Season for Caring.”
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Season for Caring recipient with lung cancer loves screen printing
