GREENFIELD — Carrie Addison wanted to walk a lap around the track — without her wheelchair.
Addison, 57, who had been diagnosed with adenocarcinoma, a type of lung cancer, in November 2016, was attending June’s Relay for Life of Hancock County fundraiser at Greenfield Central Junior High. Cancer patients and survivors are invited to take a lap around the track during the event, and Addison was determined to make that lap without the wheelchair she needed to get around most of the time, said her friend, Candy Beaver.
With her husband, Wayne Addison, standing behind her as support, Carrie Addison walked that entire lap, Beaver recalled. That effort was just one way she showed her positive attitude and strength throughout her cancer treatment, she said.
“She was so happy, you would have thought she’d completed a marathon,” Beaver said. “She was just thrilled to do that one lap.”
Carrie Addison died Friday after two years of undergoing treatments for lung cancer. Friends said those years were marked not only by her strength, but by community support of the Addison family, and the family’s willingness to support other cancer patients and survivors in turn.
Carrie’s husband, Wayne Addison, made a public post on his Facebook page announcing his wife’s death early Friday. He said his wife was an inspiration to the entire community, and while she will be dearly missed, he is thankful she is no longer struggling to breathe.
“I feel blessed I had her In my life for 38 years, as today we celebrate our first date: Way back on November 2, 1980. … I am so proud of the dignity and class she showed in her battle,” he wrote.
Wayne Addison said he’d never understand why or how his wife and family had been put through this ordeal. Carrie Addison, despite her lung cancer diagnosis, had never smoked a cigarette.
In 2017, Addison recalled doctor after doctor asking if she smoked when she was first diagnosed. She never had. Her grandparents died of lung cancer related to smoking, which dissuaded her from ever picking up the habit.
The community showed support for Carrie Addison in a variety of ways: In August, a nonprofit organization known as the Pink Heals Tour stopped in Greenfield. Firefighters and volunteers with the organization, which uses bright pink fire engines to raise awareness of cancer, visited Carrie Addison at her home, delivering flowers and pink teddy bears to her and her granddaughter, said Greenfield Fire Territory fire marshal Brian Lott.
Lott, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer last year, said he was inspired by her faith and positive attitude throughout her treatment.
And earlier this year, Colts players and cheerleaders delivered Super Bowl tickets to the Addisons’ home, treating the couple to a trip to the big game in Minneapolis on Feb. 4.
Part of the family’s luck was thanks to Wayne Addison’s best friend, Jerry Rogers, a representative at Indiana Farm Bureau Insurance, one of the Indianapolis Colts’ five largest sponsors. Rogers nominated the family, and the Colts organization did the rest, he said.
Rogers and his friend and co-worker Steve Foreman also helped put on a fundraiser, “Carnival for Carrie,” to help support the family’s medical costs.
Rogers has known the Addisons for at least 35 years, he said.
“Through the illness, she’d been amazingly strong throughout the whole process,” Rogers said Friday. “She was really more worried about others than herself.”
Even while she was undergoing treatment, her family often held benefit auctions and fundraisers for other people in need, friends recalled.
Beaver said the Addisons held a benefit for her during her treatment for breast cancer, for which she finished chemotherapy and radiation earlier this year.
The two women underwent different treatments but found similarities throughout: they’d make jokes about the steroids’ effects on them and commiserate about the headaches the treatments caused, Beaver said.
“She would always say, ‘You’re gonna be fine,’ and here she was, so much worse,” Beaver said. “She was so strong. You never heard her complain about anything.”
Foreman said he believes Carrie Addison was an inspiration to many people in the community, before and during her cancer treatment.
“When things like this happen, people tend to grieve a lot and think negative thoughts,” he said. “But we really should consider all of the great things that Carrie Addison brought to this world. She was such a good person who touched a lot of people’s lives. I think we’re going to find that she’s going to continue touching people’s lives even now.”
