Life is slower these days for Debbie Broadway, but not by choice.
The 41-year-old Bryant woman has been active in Saline County for years, from working for a district judge to chairing organizations to filling an occasional role as community activist, such as being spokesperson for a committee that led to improvements with the Bryant Post Office.
On Nov. 4, Broadway’s life of dedicated community service slowed considerably when multiple sclerosis forced her into early retirement. In an interview with the Courier, Broadway and her husband, state Sen. Shane Broadway, discussed her life and the difficulties of coping with MS. She was diagnosed in the summer of 1991.
“It isn’t something that we really talked to people about ... a lot of people don’t know she has MS,” Shane said. “I think her talking about this will help others and I think it helps her to be comfortable talking about it.”
Born May 27, 1967, in Chicago to Arlene and Michael Tableriou, it took Debbie 24 years before she would discover she has relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis, despite being born with it. She admits to being scared, but learned to manage her life so well that most never knew she was living with the disease.
Because her father was in the Air Force and had family in Lonoke County, she moved to North Little Rock as an infant and graduated from Northeast High School in 1985. Soon after, she became involved in politics.
“I volunteered with the Democratic Party of Arkansas, which later turn-ed into a job,” she said. “I went to the 1988 Democratic National Convention for our presidential candidate, Michael Dukakis. I did all the networking and became friends with Congressman Bill Alexander.”
Alexander represented Arkansas in Congress from 1969 to 1993.
“He said he was needing someone to work at his Washington, D.C., office,” she said. “But first I went to Jonesboro (1st Congressional District) to try and learn the district. I spent almost a year there before I moved to D.C. and worked as an administrative assistant.”
Debbie said it was “very much an honor” to begin her political life working for a man that nicknamed her “Tabby.” It was an early morning arrival to his office that would change her life forever.
“I came in one day to the office and he looked at me and said, ‘Tabby, what’s wrong?’ I told him I wasn’t feeling well that morning. He stood there and looked at me, which was out of the norm for him to be that personally engaged. My eye was drooping, the side of my face looked like I had Bell’s palsy, I couldn’t see out of my eye and I couldn’t feel the left side or my left arm.”
Alexander then personally walked her to the Capitol physician, but it was not determined at that time what physical ailment she had. Debbie said despite numerous tests, the doctors thought she might have had a stroke.
“Mr. Alexander walked me back to the office, sat me down at my desk, got on the phone and put me on an airplane to go home,” she said. “He said, ‘You are going to find out what this is now and you are not coming back until you know.’ I was in D.C. in my early 20s, I didn’t really have a doctor there and I was scared to death.”
Debbie said Alexander then called her mother and made arrangements to help her and pick her up from the Little Rock airport. She said she was thankful for Alexander’s personal help, but it also frightened her.
“He then put me in his car and personally drove me to the airport,” she said. “At this point I am bawling because I have got a member of Congress who just missed all kinds of meetings, and I am scared.”
After arriving in Little Rock, she first visited her family doctor who later told her she either had Lupus, AIDS or MS. Debbie said during that time period much was unknown about the AIDS virus, but that she was involved with a proponent for AIDS research in D.C.
“All three of them were foreign objects to me,” she said. “I did know about AIDS and I knew that outcome was death. So I was scared to death of that.”
Debbie was then sent to Dr. Lee Archer, a neurologist at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock. She said Archer, who is still her doctor to this day, found plaques on her brain and diagnosed her with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis.
According to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, “people with this type of MS experience clearly defined attacks of worsening neurologic function. These attacks — which are called relapses, flare-ups, or exacerbations — are followed by partial or complete recovery periods (remissions), during which no disease progression occurs. Approximately 85 percent of people are initially diagnosed with relapsing-remitting MS.”
“The plaques are sclerosis scarring,” Debbie said. “MS is my body attacking itself and what it attacks are my nerve endings.”
She said the sclerosis destroys myelin, which according to nationalmssociety.org, is “a substance rich in lipids (fatty substances) and proteins that forms layers around the nerve fibers and acts as insulation.”
“It eats away at it and scars it,” she said. “Plaque is the scar left behind from it. What happens is you basically short-circuit. And I remember my doctor told me that MS won’t kill you.”
However, Debbie said after she told Alexander about the news, he requested the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. to send him research about MS. He then sent all the information to Debbie’s family.
“What I learned through all of that information was that MS won’t kill me, but it can make my heart stop beating,” she said. “The MS can say, ‘Heart. you don’t need to beat anymore and lungs, you don’t need to breathe anymore’ ... because everything that relates to your body has a nerve ending on it. It scared me worse.”
Debbie said she found that she was born with MS and that it could have been the summer heat that triggered her “exacerbations,” but over the years she has learned to manage it.
“I learned to manage it through diet, medicines and other things,” she said. “There are so many different things that make [MS trigger]. Loud noise hurts my ears, eating a lot of red meat can affect it. If a lot of people are up milling around me, it can affect me. If I get a headache, for some people they are migraines, but for me they aren’t. It means stop, take medicine and go to bed and I’ll be fine in a little bit. If I get hot, I go in. I manage it and when it was better, you would not have a clue that I have MS.”
After being off work for “four of five months” she returned to work for Alexander. She said she appreciated everyone in D.C. treating her like normal upon her return.
“When I was better, I hit the ground running like nothing had happened,” Debbie said. “It was just like I was out of the office for a while. When I came back, Mr. Alexander didn’t treat me any differently. He didn’t baby me, which was a very good thing for me, to not be treated any differently from staff or friends or anybody else who knew. They were learning about it. too.”
Debbie continued to work for Alexander until his re-election defeat from Blanche (Lambert) Lincoln in 1992. Debbie would later return to Arkansas and work for Arkansas Congressman Ray Thornton.
Fast forward to 1995, when Shane said he first met the “spunky” Debbie Tabler-iou.
“I was volunteering at the 1995 legislative session,” he said. “I hadn’t been out out of college long and just finished working for Charlie Cole Chaffin and Debbie was working for Congressman Thornton.”
Chaffin, a Benton resident, was a 1994 Democratic candidate for Arkansas lieutenant governor, but was defeated by Republican Mike Huckabee.
“A group of us would go to the legislative receptions and would also go out on Friday nights,” Shane said. “One night I was talking to another guy about the scenery in the place and [Debbie] said, ‘Well, what are we?’ and then said, ‘Some of us won’t ask me out.’”
Debbie said Shane turned “about five shades of purple and red” before finally asking her out on a date.
“Our first date was going to be at the Faded Rose,” he said. “I showed up to pick her up and we both had the same long-sleeved polo shirt on. So we knew there was something there, and we started dating.”
Shane said on the day of the Oklahoma City bombing, April 19, 1995, Debbie was to return to Washington, D.C., to work in Thornton’s office. They continued to date long distance with Shane even riding 24 hours on a Greyhound bus to meet her. He laughingly said the Greyhound bus trip meant that “it must be love” and thought about proposing.
Shane and Debbie were invited to an Arkansas State Society party at the White House during President Bill Clinton’s first term in 1995. He told a mutual friend, Sheila Bronffman of Little Rock, of his intentions to ask Debbie’s hand in marriage.
“I told her I had a ring and wanted to propose at the White House,” he said. “I was not involved in the plan. I was just told to be there. When I got to D.C., I went to Debbie’s office. I am nervous and I have a ring in my pocket, so I proceed to ignore her and I went in locked myself in the congressman’s office to write a letter. So she thinks I am ignoring her and she is mad at me.”
After arriving at the White House party, Debbie said Shane continued to ignore her. She said at one point she grabbed him and asked if “he is staying at this party with me, am I ever going to see him?”
“She was mad at me the whole time,” he laughingly said. “While at the party, the Secret Service came and got me. They then took me down the the President’s jogging trail and hid me behind a bush.”
After hiding Shane, the Secret Service went to find Debbie. To add to the drama, Shane said the Secret Service had just escorted a person from the party for using the restroom in the White House Rose Garden.
“I thought I was in trouble for something,” Debbie said. “They handed me this two-page letter and said read this. I didn’t know what it was, but I open it up and it is Shane’s writing. I was wondering what was going on. Is it an apology or what? So I am reading this wonderfully worded, hand written note and it was wonderful. It ended with ‘I am going to ask you the most important question that I hope will change the rest of our lives.’ About the time I got to the bottom of the letter, Shane walks out from the bushes and proposes on his knee. I am looking at him like ‘Oh my God, Oh my God!’ He asked me to marry him and I said ‘Yeah! Yeah!’”
After accepting his proposal, the two were rushed through the crowd by Secret Service and an announcement was made about their plans for marriage. Shane said a photograph was taken of the two and that the photo still hangs inside their home in Bryant.
Debbie became Mrs. Broadway on March 30, 1996, in the rotunda of the state Capitol. Shane filed to run for his seat in the Arkansas House of Repre-sentatives two days later. He served three terms as a Democrat in the House and was historically elected the youngest speaker of the House in 2001. Shane is serving his last term as state senator, representing Saline and Pulaski counties.
“We got married on Saturday and I filed for office on Monday, in the same room,” he said. “We then flew to D.C., loaded up the U-Haul and drove back to Arkansas.”
Through the years, Shane said he has learned how to adjust, help and recognize signs of Debbie’s disease.
“I learned a lot quickly about her disease and understood the limitations she had,” he said. “Probably most of the 12 years we have been married, most weekends, I know she is going to sleep and she has to do that just to recharge to go back for Monday through Friday. I’ve had to adjust to that. You also learn over time how to read her body language — the things she says, the way she looks and know when it is time to go. I can generally tell when it is time to leave.”
Shane said one of the worst problems for a person with MS is stress, but despite it, Debbie has managed to work in stressful situations. Until recently, he said she has managed her stress very well, but over the summer, she took a turn for the worst.
“To work with three congressmen, a U.S. senator, a law firm and a judge, there is always stress with those jobs,” Shane said. “The jobs she chose are not conducive to her health, but she managed it. She has always been a good manager of knowing what her limitations are and understanding when she needs to stop.
“Since the first of August, her MS had taken a different turn than it had before. Before she would have an episode and she’d be off a few days and kind of recharge. But this episode won’t go away. It has been real tough on both of us. She is still outgoing and energetic, but she has had a lot more pain. It has been tough watching that, watching her go through that process.”
Since her original diagnosis, Debbie said she has taken oral medications, but over time it has grown to the point that she has to take daily injections with the medicine.
“After all those years of managing and basically controlling it, through the course of all of this, we were back to original diagnosis,” she said. “I’ll take numerous prescriptions and one shot every day. Some of those prescriptions I’ll take twice a day if not more. In addition to all of those daily pills and shot, once a month I have to take 24 pills in one day.”
After repeated trips to Dr. Archer, Debbie was told that retirement from her job should be strongly considered. She said it was one of the hardest decisions she ever made. Soon, something she rarely discussed with people would become known through the community.
“My doctor said I wasn’t going back to work,” she said. “At 41, it was forever hard to do. I never really told people that I have MS, not because it was anybody’s business, but because I didn’t need to share my worries on other people. I never used it has a crutch to explain why I can’t do something or why I can’t be somewhere.”
She still tries to get out into the public when she can, usually in the mornings, to test her strength.
“Dr. Archer wants me to get out and try to maintain some sort of outside life,” she said. “Some people see me out and think ‘oh yeah your retired’ or ‘you don’t look like you feel bad.’ My doctor wants me to see what I can do. He doesn’t want me out to the point of me hurting, but I’ve got to figure out now what the boundaries are because this spell has lasted longer than the original diagnosis.”
Debbie also said she is determined to fight her MS and become her usual self.
“I can’t let it win,” she said. “I’m not going to not fight it. And if that takes the energy that I have to get better then that is what is going to happen. I have had a lot of time to sit at home and try to figure out the meaning of life.”
for Debbie. And the meaning of life for Debbie is to be able to live. If that means living less like Debbie use to be then that is what I’ll do. But I have come to be OK with that.”
She said that she has since discovered that more people she comes into contact with, throughout Saline County, either has or knows someone with MS. It is a reason, she said, that she is talking about her disease.
“I think it is real important for everyone to understand that you really can’t judge books by their cover,” Debbie said. “I think it is important for people to know that there are support groups out there and there are others out there like us. You can call it MS, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer or whatever you want — even bipolar disorder. We all got issues, we all got problems and we all got to get through it. And we all will get through it. Plus my private conversations with God twice a day doesn’t hurt either.”
Debbie encourages people with questions to contact the Multiple Sclerosis Society and obtain information. However, she said the most important thing to do, whether it is MS or any other disease, is to talk with a family physician.
“I have MS and I can’t do anything about it,” she said. “All I can do is live to my fullest. I thank God every day for letting me wake up, I thank him every night for letting me go to sleep and I hope tomorrow he is going to let me learn what I didn’t get from him yesterday and I’ll try to do better today. I also want to stress that someone not delay something. Anything out of the ordinary that doesn’t feel right, it is OK to have someone look at it and tell you it is not anything and to be thankful. I guess I just want everyone out there to know that it is OK to be scared. It is OK to not get it. But don’t let it get you. If we do that, we lose.”
For more information about multiple sclerosis, visit www.nationalmssociety.org or talk with a local physician.
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