“I prayed to God one night that I need a woman,” says Duane “Dog” Chapman, who recalled his experience coping with his late wife Beth, who had passed away from lung cancer. So many of us grapple with how to manage after losing someone to cancer.
While speaking to Katie Souza, Chapman, 67, revealed that he turned to the Bible after Beth passed away from stage 4 lung cancer in 2019 and admitted that he needed companionship to cope with her death. “I felt so bad,” Chapman said. “I said ‘listen, she’s in heaven running around with all these girls and all my animals, and all these people. I’m crying every freakin’ day what Can I do? I gotta have a woman.'”
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Dog The Bounty Hunter’s Cancer Journey With Beth
Beth Chapman was diagnosed with throat and lung cancer in 2017, and Chapman was by her side throughout the entire experience. Tragically, Beth passed away from the disease in 2019, and in an interview with SurvivorNet, Dog Chapman explained his experience watching his past wife fight the disease.
According to Chapman, Beth had close to no appetite while going through treatment, but since eating was necessary for her to be healthy, he decided to see whether medical cannabis could help her. Now, he recommends cannabis to those going through cancer treatment.
Duane “Dog” Chapman urges cancer patients to get a cannabis prescription
"The day that we started the cannabis treatment, [Beth] hadn't eaten for nine days. The next day, after two doses, she woke up in the morning and said, 'Honey, I'm hungry,’" Chapman said.
Coping With Losing A Spouse To Cancer
After losing a spouse to cancer, it’s common for people to go through feelings like grief and anger. However, for some, the experience makes them advocates for more cancer research, and raise awareness around the disease. This was the case for Doug Wendt, who lost his wife Alice to ovarian cancer after 25 years of marriage.
Doug used his experience watching Alice battle ovarian cancer by spreading awareness. He created an organization in Alice's honor, the Cardinal Cancer Foundation, with the mission of empowering women to take control of their health and to report and question symptoms when they have them. He also said that the outcome for his wife, who battled the disease for two years, may have been different if her symptoms had been looked into earlier.
Related: The Toughest Conversations: Losing a Spouse to Cancer
"We don't know what the outcome could have been if she had addressed [the symptoms] earlier," Doug said. "Or if I had demanded that she address them earlier, as a husband who was more involved and more proactive … That's really the focus of the Cardinal Foundation. Yes, we want to help women facing ovarian cancer, [but] we'd really rather they not get it at all. We'd also rather that if they do have to face it, they face it earlier rather than later, and that means that we all have to be a lot more attentive to the real health needs of women in our society."
Doug Wendt, who lost his wife to ovarian cancer, started a foundation in her honor
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