Despite being down a lung, Richard Cabil considers himself lucky.
Well, not lucky, Cabil self-corrects, but blessed. A Christian who sings in the male chorus at his church, Cabil sees God’s hand in his life – namely that he’s living at all.
Three years ago, the 62-year-old who lives in the 46803 ZIP code was diagnosed with lung cancer, a disease that kills about six of 10 people within a year of diagnosis. Cabil was one of the other four. He lost his right lung, removed during surgery the same year he was diagnosed. But he didn’t get the dire, ticking-time-clock prognosis many others face.
“I’m here, I’m still alive and cancer-free,” said Cabil, an expressive man who laughed easily and often during an interview in November. As the hour-long interview wore on, he coughed occasionally.
Since his surgery, the foreman at Norman Stein & Associates in Fort Wayne is more easily winded by work. Cabil spends most of his day on his feet, putting rubber coatings in steel tanks or building specialized plastic tanks for industrial customers. He usually works eight hours a day – 10 hours if a job takes him on the road.
The gospel singer finds it harder to belt out his favorite hymns during twice-monthly rehearsals and worship services every second and fourth Sunday at Friendship Baptist Church in Fort Wayne. As he puts it, his one lung is now doing the work done for nearly six decades by two.
“It takes a lot out of you,” he said. Sometimes – like when he gets winded climbing stairs – he has to use an inhaler.
Cabil has spent more than four decades working in the coatings industry. Though industry working conditions have improved in recent decades with pressure from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, he can’t help but wonder whether his work may have affected his health.
Incidental exposures to certain chemicals can cause a host of respiratory problems, including cancer.
But Cabil said his surgeon thinks another chemical agent – cigarettes – likely caused his lung cancer.
Nationally, smoking accounts for nearly nine of 10 lung cancer deaths.
A heavy smoker for more than 30 years, Cabil concedes his tobacco use may be at least partly to blame for the cancer that claimed one of his lungs. Highly motivated after his diagnosis, he quit smoking with little help from nicotine gum or patches.
Still, he believes strongly that exposure to other chemicals at work played a role.
Before he joined Norman Stein & Associates nine years ago, Cabil spent 32 years at Protective Coatings Inc. in Fort Wayne. President Michael Murrell said that industry-related respiratory health risks have decreased in recent decades, including a change in the industrial arena in the last decade that saw many hazardous coatings and adhesives removed from production facilities.
Murrell said company safety procedures require employees working with hazardous chemicals to wear specialized respirators. Proper ventilation is another central tenet for protecting employees; for the past 25 to 30 years the company has used forced air systems to pump fresh air into work environments, Murrell said.
“The biggest (health) issue we continue to have is with people who smoke,” he said, adding that this drives up health care costs and increases time off because of illness. The facility is non-smoking so employees go outside to smoke; some go to their car to light up. “Talk about a confined space with a hazardous material, that’s a primary one.”
Besides not smoking, Cabil does his best to minimize exposure to fumes and dust, though he says working around chemicals is part of the job. Cabil says his current employer, Norman Stein & Associates, takes pains to protect its workers from harm. (He declined to compare those efforts with his previous employers’ safety records because of changes made in the industry in the years since he took his current job.)
All things considered, Cabil feels comfortable working at Norman Stein & Associates. On the road, going to different jobs he doesn’t always know what to expect. But depending on the jobs, different safety precautions are taken using personal protective equipment, including masks.
Company founder and owner Norman Stein, goes out to jobs and works hard to keep workers safe, Cabil said. “That means a lot.”
Off the job, Cabil turns to a higher power to keep him safe.
“I’m dedicated to Christ,” he said. “My life is dedicated to him.”
Cabil trusts God will extend his life, even though he’s down to just one lung. He felt the same assurance when he prayed for everything to go well with the January 2005 lung surgery.
“I just had faith that, hey, ‘It was going to be all right.’ ”
mschroeder@jg.net
