05/28/2026
The Stories We Don’t Talk About
Cancer, Early Detection, and What Small Towns Know Too Well
ELKHART — In a town this size, everyone knows everyone. They also know which stories are quietly carried from one generation to the next. Some of those stories involve cancer. Not the kind that makes headlines or inspires movies, but the kind that quietly changes families, steals years, and leaves survivors with one clear message: early detection matters more than most people realize until it is almost too late.
Five Elkhart residents recently shared their experiences. Their stories are different in detail but connected by the same hard truth. Cancer does not wait for convenient timing. It does not care about age, fitness level, or how busy life happens to be. What it does respect is early detection.
Ron Whinery: “Don’t Wait Until They Say There’s Nothing More They Can Do”
Ron Whinery, 55, woke up one night with blood and clots in his urine. He tried to brush it off. His wife Jamie insisted he go to the doctor. By the time he reached Morton County Hospital he was bent over in pain and could barely walk.
A CT scan found a mass the size of an egg on his left kidney. Surgeons in Amarillo removed the kidney. It was cancer. Ron was told he may have been carrying that tumor for up to ten years.
For a while he was cancer-free. Then it returned in his lymph nodes. After another round of treatment he was once again declared clear. The battle was far from over.
While working on his pickup truck in the driveway one day, Ron saw a flash of light and collapsed. He suffered a brain bleed and stroke. He was airlifted to Wichita, where doctors found five tumors in his frontal lobe. He was paralyzed for two weeks. Radiation in Amarillo shrank most of the brain tumors, but the cancer has continued spreading — now in his lymph nodes, eighth rib, right shoulder, and more.
Today Ron is battling stage 4 cancer. He receives monthly injections to protect his bones and continues regular scans and treatments. The disease has left him with anemia, extreme fatigue, dizziness, and radiation burns.
He has watched cancer claim multiple family members, including his mother, who passed just months after her own kidney cancer diagnosis.
Ron speaks plainly about what he wishes he had done differently:
“I was one who never went to the doctor unless something was wrong. I wish now that I had done more testing and screenings earlier. Don’t avoid it like I did. Don’t wait until the doctors look at you and say there’s really nothing more we can do. Get checked. Don’t gamble with your life.”
Debbie Dieker Bloesser-Pate: “Cancer Doesn’t Care How Old You Are”
Debbie Dieker Bloesser-Pate, 62, lost her first husband Randy to prostate cancer when he was only 44. He was extremely fit, taught wrestling, and lived a healthy lifestyle. A routine health fair PSA test — one he marked even though he was under the usual screening age — caught the cancer. It moved aggressively. Randy fought for a year and a half before passing away. He never met any of his grandchildren.
Years later cancer came for Debbie.
Because breast cancer ran in her family, she never skipped an annual mammogram. That vigilance saved her life. She was diagnosed with stage 1, grade 2 breast cancer. She underwent a double mastectomy in October and started chemotherapy in December. She powered through it for her daughters and future grandchildren.
Just recently, early detection helped her again — doctors found and removed squamous cell carcinoma from underneath her thumbnail.
Debbie’s message is direct, especially to younger people who think they are too young to worry:
“Cancer doesn’t care who you are. It doesn’t care how old you are. Get checked annually and stay alive for the people who love you.”
Wanda Khemraj: A Nurse Who Became the Patient
Wanda Khemraj spent 42 years as a nurse at Morton County Hospital. She administered chemotherapy when it was still mixed by hand under a laminar airflow hood, cared for the area’s first AIDS patient, and helped keep the hospital running during doctor shortages by painting hallways and IV rooms between patients.
At 76 she never expected to become one of the patients herself.
It had been six years since her last mammogram. The hospital’s old machine was outdated and getting screened meant traveling elsewhere. She kept putting it off — until her mother stepped in.
“One day my mom said, ‘You’re getting a mammogram,’” Wanda recalled. She made an appointment in Liberal. They found invasive breast cancer.
Wanda was sent to Harrington Breast Cancer Center in Amarillo for surgery and radiation. The experience was smoother than she expected after decades of watching others go through treatment.
Her mother’s story reinforced the same lesson. At age 80 her mother attended Elkhart’s annual health fair. Routine lab work showed dangerously low hemoglobin. A local doctor found a colon tumor. Sixteen years later she remains cancer-free.
Wanda’s simple conclusion after a lifetime in nursing:
“That’s why getting tested is so important. It saved her life. And it could save yours.”
Terra Orth: “Be Selfish… Insist That You’re Still Alive Tomorrow”
Terra Orth, 51, had gone 13 years without a Pap smear and had never had a mammogram until she was nearly 50. Life simply got busy. A routine conversation with her husband Shannon’s doctor — a family friend who had battled breast cancer — changed everything.
The doctor “gave her a little chewing out” and scheduled both tests. That decision set off a chain reaction. Terra was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer on Valentine’s Day 2025. She opted for a double mastectomy and endured chemotherapy. She lost her hair, felt like “a blob sitting here,” and struggled with the fear of becoming a burden to her family.
Today she is in No Evidence of Disease (NED). Her message is practical and heartfelt:
“If it’s free, you’re not out anything. Do you have people you love? Then be a little selfish… insist that you’re still alive tomorrow. Get screened and stay healthy. Early detection gives you a good long life. Why not do what you can?”
Chris and Matti Amerin: Still Fighting, Still Showing Up
On March 3, 2025, Morton County Sheriff’s Deputy Chris Amerin, 39 — who worked full time at the local business Scott Power and part time at the sheriff’s office — came home for lunch, started warming food in the microwave, and collapsed — suffering a grand mal seizure that shook the entire house. His wife Matti, the county’s Head Court Clerk, found him unconscious on the floor. He was airlifted to Wichita.
Doctors discovered a brain tumor the size of a thumbnail that had ruptured a blood vessel. Further testing revealed stage 4 melanoma that had metastasized to his brain and spinal fluid. This was Chris’s second battle — he had been diagnosed with stage 2 melanoma in 2021 after Matti noticed a suspicious mole.
The fight has been brutal. Chris has endured fluid buildup that required draining nearly a gallon from his stomach at a time, swollen feet, extreme fatigue, and moments when he could barely get out of a recliner. At one low point the family gathered and Chris planned his own funeral.
“I’m not afraid to die,” Chris said. “I’m not sad for me. I’m sad for what I’m leaving behind — my wife, my daughter, my stepdaughter, my family.”
Matti has been by his side every step — working full-time, raising their daughters, and driving to treatments.
Their message is blunt:
Chris: “Do it for your family. Quit being selfish and go get checked out. It’s scary, but it’s better to know and face it head on.”
Matti: “Please go get your skin checked. Do your breast exams. Get your colonoscopy when it’s time. Don’t wait until you’re sitting in a hospital room planning a funeral.”
This Sunday in Elkhart
On Sunday, May 31, from 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM, the Morton County Medical Clinic at 411 Sunset Ave will offer free cancer and health screenings. No insurance or appointment is needed for most services.
Mammograms are also available. To schedule one, call Chavely at 913-945-7864. If you have insurance it will be billed to your plan. If you do not have insurance, the Masonic Cancer Alliance will cover the cost.
The stories above are not ancient history. They are happening right now in the same town where people still wave at each other on Main Street and kids ride bikes until dark. They show what can happen when screening is delayed — and what can be gained when it is not.
Early detection does not guarantee an easy road. But it gives people the chance to fight on their own terms, for the people they love, for as long as they possibly can.
That is the simple truth these five Elkhart residents want their neighbors to know.
