Joyce
Dover,
my mother, has been dead more than some people have been alive. She
wrote a blockbuster autobiography, which was rejected by a few publishers,
as being "too autobiographical"! Well, duh. Excerpts
will appear here within the week, sometime in my
lifetime.
Her main hobby, other than gardening was "ham" (amateur) radio. She was on two meters as WB3ECT where she served as all sorts of emergency weather warning stuff. She was very active as NNN0RMO on Pennsylvania Area U.S. Navy-Marine Corps Military Affiliate Radio System (MARS).
Joyce was the coordinator of the local Severe Allergy and Environmental Illness Support Group. Despite what John Stossel says these are not hypochondriacal, hysterical women. Their only psychological illness was that caused by dealing with male doctors who learned about women from Sigmund Freud. We will have a page about that one of these days. We women simply have more sensitive immune systems than males.
We had hoped she had beaten "final stage" abdominal cancer in late 1996 with chemotherapy and radiation.. Then she had an operation for an abdominal obstruction, not related to the cancer. By Feb. 1997, we knew about a lump in her lung. We watched it while she took all the right nutrients and she tried to get her white cells to go after it. They worked on the bowels quite well, but ignored her when she tried to get them to go after the lung one. When it stopped growing, we relaxed. Then it grew like crazy. We tried cesium chloride (to make her pH basic), and radiation. After a certain doctor (He was NOT included in the Thank You below,) told her there was no hope, she got really depressed and lost her will to fight. The anti-depressants she tried made her crazy, literally. The tumor has been shrunken more than 60% already just by the radiation. She takes it well. (Well, the 3000 mg of C a day helps that.) The lung tumor had completely disappeared by November, 1997. She went home and had a weakened Christmas there. While Paul and I were in Austrailia and New Zealand, in January 1998, they found a brain metasis. She went in the hospital, but it was clear to me by the end of January, her brain was going on vacation. I moved her in with me. She got a single dose of hydrazine sulfateon the last day of her life. It seemed to have given her enough energy to finally die. She and I knew she was dying and I had promised her I would let her go when it was time. I held her and talked to her in her last half hour, while Devin and Paul were nearby. Alas, it was all too much for her. She was too weak to fight anymore. It was a peaceful death. It took me a year to get around to working on this page again. Even now, tears are running down my face.
February, 16, 1998. Joyce's life has ended, but not her story.
Special love to Dr. Watson, and Nurse Diane who weren't afraid to hug
Joyce and tell her that they loved her.
She got wonderful, loving care from the folks at Williamsport, Divine
Providence Cancer clinic. Thanks guys.
Joyce Kramer Dover, 64, RR#4 Montoursville, died after a long battle
with cancer.
She was survived by her daughter, Muriel Hykes, Williamsport, with
whom she
had been living, and her son, Daniel
Hykes, Alaska. She had 7
grandchildren. Bryn,
Aubrey,
Devin,
Curran,
and Erin Bailey
of Williamsport.
Adam and Ariel Hykes of Elimsport. She had two sisters, Dorothy
Callender of
Selinsgrove, Zella Kramer of Bloomsburg, and a brother, Robert Kramer
in New
Hampshire.
Joyce was a member of Montoursville Presbyterian Church where
she sang in
the choir. Joyce was active in amateur radio in the valley and
in the world,
providing communications for several emergency response teams, locally.
She was
known to thousands as the Military Affiliate Radio System (MARS lady)
operator
who relayed messages from people in the Navy and Marines.
Joyce started and ran
the Severe Allergy and Environmental Illness support group until her
death. She
enjoyed riding Gold Wings. Joyce was the author of an unpublished
book about her
previous near-death experiences. She enjoyed gardening.
Born in Bloomsburg, May 13, 1933, she was the daughter of John A. and
Leerah Eddinger Kramer. She was a 1951 graduate of Scott Township
(Columbia
County) High School.
I will always miss her. She was a daughter, sister and friend
to me.
