The Tribune

All his life, from the time he was old enough to wish he could climb one, Michael Claridge has been in love with trees. He can’t remember a time when he didn’t follow Mom, and later, work with her to trim and preserve the greatest silk cotton, mahogany, sapodilla, madeira, mango trees in The Bahamas from being the youngest crew in A-1 Tree Trimming to be the arborist everyone turned to.

Every job he took on was to prolong the life of a gift of Nature. Now he is in the greatest struggle of all – to save his own life.

Local doctors have told Michael and his wife, Vandrea Claridge, that all they can do is make him comfortable. He has a month left on this earth, they said. But others, in another country, say they have treated the rare cancer he has with success. All the family needs is the remaining dollars adding up to $10,000 to get him on the flight and in the hands of a medical team in Cuba ready to try to save his life. Donations are coming in, slowly, just not fast enough and the clock is ticking.

Michael first noticed a lump on his upper leg in 2021, but thought little of it. There was no pain. He continued to work as always, coming home every night to the woman he loves and the three children who live with them, Vanessa, 17, Michaela 13, and Judah, 7. Like the three children at home, his fourth, Zamira Swann, prays for a miracle.

That lump Michael thought was nothing had a plan of its own. It grew, undetected, like a small branch riddled with disease that will eventually seep into bigger branches and threaten the life of the tree that appeared so healthy. On January 17, the tumor that had been growing silently as Michael had been enduring the pain that was now part of his life burst. He was diagnosed with a large Dedifferentiated Liposarcoma to the right posterior thigh. A Pet CT scan showed metastasis to the lungs with hypermetabolic lymph nodes to inguinal regions.

It’s a diagnosis no 41-year-old or the family, including the mother he worked with every day of his life since a teen, Joy Burrows, wants to hear, a diagnosis no one can bear to believe. Vandrea says in addition to physicians at PMH, they sought the opinion of a private doctor who told them there is a cocktail of chemo and radiation that could attack the mass, but it’s expensive, and there is no guarantee. That’s when they began seeking other solutions, including the one many Bahamians turn to, Cuba. “They are waiting for him there,” says Mom. “We just have to get the rest of the funds and fast, no mother should bury her child. I can’t even think straight,” she confesses. “All I can do is pray, and pray more.”

Joy continues, “I’m a mother before all else and my heart aches for my son. I’m privy to how often he is in excruciating pain.”

Instead of a cocktail of chemo, Michael is on pain medication, narcotics to mask the hurt but not attempt to heal the disease. “Go home, get comfortable,” the doctors here told him, according to the family, saying there was little they could do in the case of Stage Four terminal cancer. Yet, doctors in Cuba, despite the size of the balloon-like mass but unrestricted by the FDA or other regulatory bodies, hold out hope.

Praying is what the family does most of the day now. Two of the children are afraid to go to school, afraid if they leave the house Daddy will be gone when they return. They are re-living the scenario when their mom came home and found her mother, their grandmother who lived with them and whom they adored, deceased. In their minds, she might not have passed away if someone had been with her.

“They are afraid to leave their Daddy alone,” says Vandrea. “It’s hard for them to go to school so we pray and he prays and we pray together. When he is in pain and the pain is the worst, he is praying and praising God and the children are praying with him.”

She is quiet for a moment and then she says with the faintest smile tinged with the tears she tries not to show, “I have the sweetest kids in the world.”

Kids who deserve a father.

If you wish to contribute, there are two accounts accepting funds or a gofundme page where deductions for fees are a little greater. Local accounts CIBC, branch 29067, chequing account 201736746, Michael J Claridge, or Vandrea McKinney savings account at RBC branch 05745m account 7206964. Or call 455-5655 to speak to the family.