Mizpah
how it All Started
by Roger Corbin
Richard (Dick) Corbin was born in Grand Isle in
1944 to Donat and Jeannette (Fournier) Corbin. Dick, at a
very young age, had to leave school and help out his mother
with family responsibility in taking care of his five siblings
when his dad died in May of 1962. Dick married Nancy
Chasse in 1965 and raised two wonderful children (April &
Jason).
In June of 1969 Richard (Dick) Corbin, at twentytwo years old, was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease at the
fourth stage. He was told to go home and fix his financial
and family matters for he had less than a year to live. The
doctor stated that Hodgkin’s was a cancer that was known
(in medical terms) as the sister to Leukemia and mentioned
new medical words to Dick’s ears like; cobalt, radiation,
chemotherapy, etc. Dick was so nervous and confused that
he went home and told his wife that he had hot-chicken
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disease.
Since day one it was a constant travel to hospitals
from Maine to Boston, Mass. for treatments. The doctors
gave him the maximum amount of cobalt and radiation
therapy that a human body could take. To this day Dick
still feels the effect of those radiation treatments for they are
still working, and it’s taking a toll on his body. Dick says,
“I had no choice for if the doctors wouldn’t have done what
they did, I wouldn’t be here today.” Over the years his
cancer treatments lead to more complications where he had
to have a hip replacement twice, a colostomy, became a type
1 diabetic, and has had thyroid gland, spleen and intestinal
removal.
It was not an easy road, and it was hard for him
to accept. But he had not hit bottom yet. He took to the
liquor bottle and drank to drown his sorrows, his anger,