By Lisa Buie, Times Staff Writer
Friday, September 10, 2010
Both Marcy Green, right, and her daughter Morgan suffered from cancer. Morgan got leukemia at age 4 and fought it off. Green battled cancer for six years before dying on Aug. 22.
WESLEY CHAPEL — Marcy Green had tried everything to cure her cancer. Surgery. Chemotherapy. Radiation. Even some experimental treatment. Still the cancer that had invaded her colon six years earlier had spread to her lungs and brain. The only things left were herbal remedies and good old-fashioned prayer.
Rides on Wrangler, her brown and white horse, helped take her mind off the disease. So did the friends she made while participating in competitions despite her illness.
Those who got to know Marcy soon learned she was no stranger to cancer. Her mother and grandmother both survived breast cancer. Her father-in-law had died of pancreatic cancer. In 2006, her daughter Morgan, then 3, was diagnosed with leukemia, a disease Morgan has survived. Morgan and Marcy were honored three years ago at the grand opening of the Wesley Chapel Hyundai dealer. The company gave away a sport utility vehicle to raise money for cancer research. The crowd smiled as one of the announcers handed Morgan the keys.
Complications affected Marcy's balance, and in April she had to give up horseback riding. Those in the close-knit riding community wanted to do whatever they could to help save their friend. Over the summer, they started trying to raise money that could send the Angus Valley resident to one of the Cancer Treatment Centers of America, an organization that holistically treats people with advanced stages of cancer.
It was not to be. At 3:04 a.m. on Aug. 22, Marcy Green breathed her last. She was 34.
"The night sky has a bright new shining star; another angel is watching over us from heaven," wrote J.R,, a Fort Pierce woman who oversaw the message board that was dedicated to updates on Marcy. "When you hear the thunder, but see no rain, that is Marcy, galloping through the clouds on the most glorious horse."
The friends still wanted to help Marcy's husband Paul and daughters Morgan, now 7, and Tawny, 15. The horse show they had been organizing before her death is still on for today.
The event includes a horse show, exhibition, food, live music, a used tack sale, lots of raffles and children's activities.
According to the message board, donations include a vehicle paint job, carpet cleaning, canvas horse paintings, various gift certificates, and a handmade leather tack. Pasco County's Bellamy Brothers, whose home is just up the road from the show location, kicked in some CDs by David Bellamy's singing sons Jesse and Noah, who now live in Nashville.
Friend Laura VanHoose has been busy organizing the event. On Thursday she was still out gathering supplies. She said she first met Marcy a few days after the event at Hyundai.
"She came to my house to look at a horse that I had rehabilitated and was offering for sale," VanHoose said, "She was just getting back into horses so she had called me a few time with questions and it was then that we started riding together and became inseparable.
"As heartbreaking as it is I know she is in a better place and is no longer in any pain."
Lisa Buie can be reached at buie@sptimes.com or (813) 909-4604.