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Published: Thursday, Jul. 29, 2010 / Updated: Thursday, Jul. 29, 2010 05:11 PM

Community’s generosity ‘helps me spiritually’

FORT MILL TOWNSHIP -- 

Kathy Hebert had a bad day.In fact, the Rock Hill woman, who plays the organ and piano for a Fort Mill church, had 24 bad days.

“In a row,” said Hebert, 48. “Not being able to go anywhere. I never got out of bed for weeks.”

The mother of two has a life-threatening illness that strips her of her energy. Yet a chance to fellowship with friends who rallied last Saturday to raise money to help save her life more than made up for her bad days.

“It helps me spiritually,” Hebert said. “God is showing His love to me through every person. It helps me deal with my physical sickness when it’s too much to bear.”

Her illness, called chronic fatigue immune disfunction syndome, forces Hebert to stay in her bed most of the day because her cells do not process oxygen normally.

“The sickness is so overwhelming that I can’t even sit up in a chair and visit with friends and my family,” she said. “It was that bad.”

Save a miracle.

Hebert planned to leave by airplane Tuesday and arrive today in Panama City, Panama, where a ground breaking treatment is available that could help her.

“To get well,” Hebert said. “I have lived my youth as an 80-year-old. Now, I’m going to live like a teenager.”

Hebert, the mother of Miranda, 18, and Benjamin, 15, will be in Panama for 11 days for the treatment. Recovery will take months, she said.

“Sixty days,” Hebert said with a huge smile that made the sides of her eyes crinkle. “But I’ll be back at the organ as soon as I get back to the States.”

The road to Hebert’s treatment was blocked by an obstacle.

The treatment, which Hebert believes can give her a second chance at life, cost $28,000. Hebert’s family and friends raised $10,000, but they still needed $18,000.

Then God sent a miracle.

Someone dropped off a check for $1,000 even as Hebert’s church family at Fort Mill’s Doby’s Bridge Presbyterian Church planned last Saturday’s smoked chicken dinner benefit fundraiser, which included a silent auction to raise money for her.

“Because we love her,” member and sanctuary choir director Donna McMillan said. “She is so beautiful inside and out. She has a million-watt smile. Even though her body is so compromised, you can’t tell that. She just smiles, and you have no idea that she is desperately ill.”

From the dinner plates, organizers hoped to bring in about $2,000, and a church member promised to match up to a $500 contribution, bringing the Heberts up to $14,000.

“So, we’re halfway there,” Hebert’s husband, Don, said of the $28,000 goal.

He glanced around the church fellowship hall, filled with people.

“The response is incredible,” Don Hebert said. “It’s hard to imagine people turning out like this. It’s beyond anything that we expected. We’re grateful.”

Across the room, Hebert glowed. “I’m supposed to be on complete bed rest,” she said. “I couldn’t not come. I would have missed all this.”

So, when friends and family came to greet her, as more than 150 did, Hebert stood. “To give them hugs and to tell them ‘Thank you for coming,’” Hebert said.

Each time Hebert stood and hugged someone, her strength was zapped, but still she hugged.

“I almost passed out every time I stood up,” she admitted. “I didn’t hug my mom because I almost fell out. I told her if she wanted a hug, she needed to hug me sitting down.”

Her mother complied.

“I have seen her struggle so hard to live a normal life,” Wilma Goodwin said of her daughter. “She’s always told me, ‘Mom, don’t ask me how I feel. When I want you to know how I feel, I’ll tell you because I want to be treated as a normal person.’”

Like Hebert, Goodwin clings to her faith and hope that Hebert will get better.

“We have never given up hope because of our faith in God,” Goodwin said. “I’m looking forward to the day that she and I can do something together for fun and see her play the piano without a lot of stress on her body.”

Across the room, Hebert visited with a college friend, Pam Jenkins. Their conversation was sprinkled with bursts of laughter. Then the conversation turned serious: Jenkins recalled a time that dates back more than 20 years ago when Hebert, a music major at Columbia College in Columbia, was well and full of energy.

“She was always moving fast, running from one thing to the next,” Jenkins said as her husband, Phil, and Hebert looked on. “She’s shorter than I am, but I could never keep up.”

The two women giggle.

“She’d practice to late at night, perfecting her musical talent,” Jenkins said of Hebert.

Now, Hebert can’t walk for long periods. She can’t run to the mall for some mother/daughter time either, because she can only be active for about an hour each day. Hebert has been sick for 26 years, but that didn’t steal her zest for life, Jenkins said.

“She still tries to maintain that attitude and spirit of energy that she can’t execute because her body won’t do what her heart wants to do,” Jenkins said. “When I come visit her on Saturdays, I have to make her lie down because she wants to sit up to visit.”

Steps away, Don Hebert manned the silent auction post. The church family made final auction bids.

“It means a lot that my church and community came together so willingly to support my family,” Miranda Hebert said. “This fundraiser will make the trip to Panama possible.”

And they hope it can bring an end to Kathy Hebert’s bad days.