Crissie Oaldon has never been one to ask for help, even while battling cancer.
The Brown County Sheriff’s Department knows that, which is why it’s hosting a dinner benefit in her honor this weekend. Oaldon works as the case manager for the sheriff’s department.
Crissie’s Kick to Cancer Drive-Thru Dinner benefit will begin at 4 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 29 and will go until the food runs out. There is no set cost for the meal; the department is asking for donations that will go directly to Oaldon.
The meal includes a pulled pork sandwich, baked beans, coleslaw, chips and a cookie.
An online auction is also underway on the department’s Facebook page that will run until Friday, Aug. 28. Bids can be made in the comments of the photos and items can be picked up at the benefit.
Oaldon has been a county employee since 2011, starting in the Brown County prosecutor’s office as a deferral coordinator. She ended up moving to a full-time job in the county clerk’s office when Beth Mulry was clerk.
Oaldon followed Mulry to the auditor’s office to serve as her chief deputy. Then, Oaldon applied for the case management job after Mulry was not going to serve a second term as auditor. She began working for the sheriff’s department in January 2018.
Oaldon also has a nursing degree.
“One of the things that they told me that stuck out in my interview was, ‘We’re looking for somebody who would really fit in here. Our office is like a family.’ I had heard that at other offices before, too, and it’s not always true,” she said.
“I can promise you that I have never felt more like family in any office I ever have ever been in my life. Those people, they are amazing. I thought that even before my cancer diagnosis, but I will tell you they have proven it over and over and over again.”
Oaldon, 44, was diagnosed with Stage 3 invasive ductal carcinoma last December. She had noticed some changes in her breast for several months and thought it was due to hormones.
“I finally had enough of a change that I moved up my annual exam with my gynecologist,” Oaldon said. She went at end of November.
“It wasn’t a matter of feeling a lump. That’s what the confusing part was. Most people say they feel a lump and that’s what sends them to the doctor. That wasn’t my case. I was just feeling dense breast tissue and things like that,” Oaldon said.
Oaldon was scheduled for a baseline mammogram on Dec. 2. She had a diagnostic mammogram four days later.
“At this point, I hadn’t told anybody, not even my husband, not because of any reason other than I like to have answers before I concern people,” Oaldon said.
“I snuck over to this mammogram without telling anybody, and pretty much immediately the radiologist came in and said, ‘OK. We’re taking you for an ultrasound now. There is definitely something we need to check out.’ In my heart, with my medical knowledge I do have, I knew in my heart something was wrong before he even came in to tell me that.”
‘Devastating blow’
After the ultrasound, the radiologist told Oaldon that a biopsy was needed to check the area in her breast which looked “very suspicious.”
The biopsy happened later that day. She went home after the ultrasound and told her husband, Jeff, what was going on, since she couldn’t drive herself back to the biopsy later that afternoon.
On Dec. 8, she received the results. She immediately went to see the surgeon.
“It was a pretty devastating blow. There were a lot of tears. He explained to me my tumor was so large, he couldn’t just go in and remove it. I had the option of mastectomy, but being 43 years old at the time, I didn’t really want to entertain that idea. Hindsight is 2020. I would have definitely chosen that in the beginning,” she said.
She ended up having four months of chemotherapy to shrink the tumor for surgery, then received radiation after her surgery to take care of any remaining cancer cells. Her first treatment was on Christmas Eve.
Oaldon would work in the office on her “good weeks” when she didn’t have chemo, then work from home on weeks she did have chemo.
“They just worked with me immediately,” she said about her coworkers at the sheriff’s department.
In April, Oaldon was moved to Stage 4 after doctors discovered the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes during surgery to remove the tumor. She had 15 lymph nodes removed and eight tested positive for cancer.
“The surgery ended up being a little bit more detailed and intense. I had to stay in the hospital overnight instead of it just being outpatient surgery,” she said.
“That was kind of stressful, just because I am still concerned that it’s in my lymph nodes.”
After receiving her diagnosis, Crissie told her two daughters, Hannah and Abigail, who still lived at home. She also has one son, Austin, and one grandson, River, who turns 1 in October.
“We sat them down and I was just really honest with them. Not only was I honest with them because I wanted to be honest with them, but because they are young ladies also, and they need to know to monitor their own health,” Oaldon said.
After tears were shed and the conversation turned serious, both daughters kicked into cleaning mode to help protect their mom from germs.
After her surgery, Oaldon was ordered to complete 33 radiation treatments daily. She finished her 28th treatment on July 17, but ended up having a complication from radiation where fluid had built up in her breast.
“I ended up with cellulitis. I was admitted to the hospital for a week. I was on antibiotics and things in the hospital. They tested me for anything and everything. Nothing was really wrong. They’re just continuing to call it a complication from radiation,” Oaldon explained.
“My body just said, ‘That’s it. I’m done.’ The good news is that I got all of my regular radiation in.”
She was scheduled to receive five more “booster treatments,” but that is now on hold as doctors wait for her breast to be rid of the extra fluid. She will be meeting with a surgeon soon to see if a drain will be necessary.
“I still consider myself really lucky because this is the only complication I had other than normal signs and symptoms of chemo and radiation,” she said.
“I didn’t feel good. Chemo was bad. It sucked. I don’t wish it on anybody, but I made it, and I have a huge support system. I couldn’t do it without my family, my friends and my work. It’s amazing.”
Rally around Crissie
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and her diagnosis, Oaldon has not been in a store since November.
She and her family were also wearing masks to help protect her long before it was a coronavirus requirement.
“For me, it (the pandemic) just kind of gave me a lot of time home with my family, which couldn’t have worked out any better, actually,” she said.
When COVID-19 cases started popping up in nearby Johnson County, Sheriff Scott Southerland called Oaldon into his office.
“He said, ‘I want you to know we made this decision because we love you.’ I said, ‘What decision are you talking about?’ He said, ‘You have to go home. You can’t be here,’” Oaldon said.
She has been working from home since March 11, but she still receives constant support from the sheriff’s department. “I hear from people all the time,” she said.
“They come and check on me, they send me messages and I get cards in the mail. It’s just amazing. It’s just so heartwarming.”
The sheriff’s department had planned to have a benefit concert for Oaldon at the Brown County Music Center in April, but that was cancelled due to the pandemic.
“I had no idea they were even working on anything,” Oaldon said.
“I was upstairs in the admin office and (Det.) Brian Shrader came up to me and he handed me a piece of paper. I thought it was something for work. I opened it up and it was the band lineup and at the top of the paper it said, ‘Benefit for Crissie Oaldon.’ I just burst into tears.”
“It’s a real humbling situation,” Oaldon said. “I’ve never really been one to ask for help. I never have my whole life. To know that just different people are coming out of the woodwork to help me is amazing.”
Shrader said he did not want to continue putting off Oaldon’s benefit due to COVID-19 concerns.
“We as a department just want to do it because she is one of our own and we’re tight knit. She plays an important role at our department. Her role benefits the community as well as keeping everything organized at the department.”
He described Oaldon as having a “happy-go-lucky kind of personality” who never asks for anything from anybody.
“She never would have asked for help in this situation. I just didn’t want her to feel like she was alone,” he said.
“We’re rallying around her, but it’s kind of also a point for the community to rally around cancer as a whole. She is kind of a representative and recipient of that this time,” he said.
He added that since people have had to be in their homes due to COVID-19, especially Oaldon, this would be a good time for everyone to see each other, from a distance.
Oaldon plans to attend to wave at everyone. “I can’t wait to see everybody driving by,” she said.
No other option
Oaldon said her goal now is to make sure every woman knows the importance of getting a mammogram.
“It’s scary. Even if you just go and don’t think you have anything going on, it’s scary, but you have to go,” she said.
“My symptoms were not your typical symptoms. I talked to lots of friends; I talked to co-workers at the sheriff’s office. I’m like, ‘Go get your mammogram. Don’t wait.’”
Oaldon said she has had a great support system, which is something she does not take for granted.
“I came out of my first treatment on Christmas Eve and I was in tears. My husband said, ‘What’s wrong?’ I said, ‘There are so many people who don’t have anybody and I don’t know how they do it.’ I have had so much support, and I have had support that I didn’t even know would be support,” she said.
“It’s very humbling and very much appreciated, because it’s an emotional blow, it’s a physical blow, and it’s a financial blow. I am thankful to work where I work and I am thankful to have insurance, but I am wise to the world of insurance and it’s not easy on small counties, so then you have guilt with that. It’s hard.”
With this diagnosis, Oaldon will have mammograms every six months, take medicine for the rest of her life and is now at risk of lymphedema in her right arm. She has to wear a medical alert bracelet so people know not to take her blood pressure or stick an IV in that arm where the lymph nodes were removed.
“Kind of a new world I am having to adjust to, but I figure my situation is still by far minor compared to some of the things I have seen since December,” she said.
“I sure hope scientists continue to work on a cure for cancer, because cancer is not fair. It’s not fair and it’s a nasty, nasty disease. It affects a lot of people,” she said.
Her hair is now growing back after losing it during chemotherapy, which she said was one of the most difficult parts.
Knowing that she will once again feel normal is what keeps Oaldon fighting. She continues to feel better. Currently, there is no cancer in her body, and she will have another mammogram in November to make sure she is cancer-free.
“For me, there is not another option. I know my time here is not done,” she said.
“I know there’s a lot of people who get a diagnosis and say, ‘No, I don’t want anything chemical. I don’t want any medicines.’ I respect that, but for me, my personal decision was, I am not done here.”
