Pictured Above Is: Carolyn Rice
Story And Photo Courtesy Of Pinal Central. Com
CG woman overcomes life-threatening diseases to be top bowler
- By BRIAN WRIGHT, Staff Writer
- Jun 3, 2018 Updated 5 hrs ago
- Casa Grande resident Carolyn Rice, 68, has proven doctors wrong who thought she would die years ago from multiple diseases. After her performance at a United States Bowling Congress tournament in Reno, Nev., last month, she is ranked No. 1 in her division.
CASA GRANDE -- Nearly 20 years ago, Carolyn Rice didn’t want to live anymore.
Facing insidious illnesses and a dire prognosis, life had knocked her to the canvas. That’s when a higher power told her to get up and keep fighting, and she hasn’t stopped since.
Rice has battled chronic lymphocytic leukemia, diabetes, heart problems, pneumonia and a rare skin disease called Stevens-Johnson syndrome.
In 1989, Rice, then 39, was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia. She was given 15 to 20 years to live, with doctors deeming the latter number incredibly optimistic.
The news was devastating. Ten years later, Rice was in the hospital and things looked bleak. Doctors told her to get her affairs in order. They expected her to die.
“I sat there and I cried, and I asked God why,” Rice told PinalCentral. “I’ve got so much more to do, why now?”
That’s when a voice suddenly punctured the dark cloud hovering over her, letting in a ray of light.
“[God] says, ‘Why are you listening to them? I didn’t say you’re going anywhere,’” she recalled. “Three days later I was home. And that’s the truth.”
Fighting back
Rice, 68, has lived in Casa Grande the last three years, but she grew up in Oregon. She had a skill, and a passion for bowling from a young age. After she was diagnosed with cancer in 1989, she mostly stopped bowling because she had three growths on her back and doctors said it would be too taxing to throw a ball.
Already dealing with cancer and other health problems, Rice was burdened with her toughest challenge yet when she was diagnosed with Stevens-Johnson syndrome in 1999, a disease that’s fatal for about 10 percent of patients.
Rice described severe rashes and entire sheets of skin peeling off from her body. It was a living nightmare.
“My skin burned. It falls off in sheets, so you pick up your arm, and it just falls off,” she said. “You can’t put on clothes, you can’t touch anything, your hands blister … It’s just nasty. You don’t want to look up the pictures.”
During the battle with her horrific skin disease, the optimistic, sunny Rice reached her darkest hour.
“That was the time that I didn’t care if I lived,” she said.
Any semblance of a normal life is vanquished with the disease, and Rice didn’t leave her house for the first six months. She was also undergoing chemotherapy at the time, and she was prescribed Oxycontin for her pain.
But that became another problem, as her dosage was so high that she felt completely drugged out most of the time. She has a hard time remembering much from that period because she was in an Oxycontin-fueled haze.
Rice abhors not feeling in control, and it got to a point where enough was enough.
“I said, ‘I’m not going to live like this,’” she said. “And if that’s the case, I’m going to try bowling … and I took myself off the pain pills.”
She said she turned to bowling to help get her off the drugs and also to build up strength in her back. And another thing, she just enjoys it. Bowling was a way for her to reclaim some happiness in her life.
It took her five years to beat Stevens-Johnson syndrome; eventually a doctor discovered it was an allergic reaction to antibiotics.
Once she got off the pain pills, she felt blessed and fortunate. She knew life had more to offer, and she wanted those experiences. She wanted to go back to the bowling alley.
Healing in an alley
Asked where she got the strength to fight against seemingly insurmountable odds, Rice pointed to the sky.
“My faith. You can’t not have faith when you live through what I have gone through,” she said.
When Rice had outlived even the most optimistic initial prognosis, 20 years, she decided to celebrate. So since 2009, she’s been doing something she loves — bowling. And she’s pretty darn good at it.
Rice started with a 10-pound ball. Her doctor said she shouldn’t lift anything heavier. Then she moved to 12 pounds. After that, she picked up a 14-pound ball, which she still uses to this day.
Her refusal to accept a bowling handicap is symbolic of the way she refused to accept being enslaved by pills, how she refused to accept death.
A member of the United States Bowling Congress, Rice has competed at the Women’s Championships every year since 2009.
Last month, at the Women’s Championships in Reno, Nevada, Rice bowled a 542 series, with game scores of 159, 192 and 191 to beat out the 537 series from Linda Lam of Oak Park, Illinois.
Rice did this despite dealing with complications from her diabetes leading up to the event, when her blood sugar dropped dramatically.
She bowls in the USBC Amethyst singles division, which consists of bowlers with an average score between 130 and 144. She is now ranked No. 1 in her division and will compete at the Women’s Championships in Wichita, Kansas, next year.
Cotton Bowl Lanes on Pinal Avenue in Casa Grande is Rice’s happy place. She loves bowling, of course, but it’s more than that. Rice has two children whom she loves dearly, but the other bowlers she has met at the alley have become a second family.
Her battles are ongoing. Rice still deals with her cancer, her diabetes, and she had a heart attack last June.
Looking at her today, it’s not noticeable. The effervescent Rice doesn’t consider herself a victim. She says she’s blessed and that God has been “very good” to her. Her health has also considerably improved.
“This is the best year I’ve had for a long time,” she said.
Rice now has new goals. She wants to live to 80, and she wants to bowl a 600 series — her best is a 599.
Facing death and battling myriad diseases for nearly 30 years has bestowed Rice with some valuable lessons.
“It’s given me a better appreciation of life,” she said. “And there’s no reason to complain. Somebody told me, ‘You never complain about it.’ Well, somebody that says, ‘Why me?’ Well, why not me?”
Rice wants to be an example to others with similar battles to never give up, even when staring into the abyss.
“Hopefully I’m showing other people that cancer isn’t a death sentence, that you can have a life, you can do what you want,” she said.
Casa Grande Bowling News June 3, 2018