Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com
Published - Wednesday, May 21, 2008
A Life Remembered: Living in the face of death
Peg Dosch, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse professor emeritus in health education, will be remembered by her colleagues and friends as a caring and kind woman who empowered her students and other women.
But according to her husband, Ken Becker, Dosch’s legacy is how she lived with liver cancer, a transplant and their own love story.
A memorial service for Dosch, who died March 18 at age 67, will be Saturday in Rochester, Minn.
Dosch received part of a former student’s liver in a transplant surgery in December 2004 at Mayo Clinic. The transplant was Dosch’s only hope to live. She was diagnosed with a rare form of liver cancer in 2001.
Gretchen Beckstrom, a friend and Dosch’s former student, volunteered to become a donor. Dosch knew nothing about it until Beckstrom started the donor screening process.
Beckstrom, a La Crosse Central graduate, had Dosch for several classes at UW-L and Becker, also UW-L professor emeritus in health education, as a thesis adviser.
She said Dosch and Becker were her role models and gave her “words to live by, life lessons and inspiration.”
Becker said his wife wouldn’t have lived for more than two months without the transplant.
“We got almost 3˝ years together with the transplant. It was a gift for us,” Becker said. “The liver was still functioning beautifully, but the cancer had spread, and nothing more could be done.”
Last year, Becker published a book, “Transplanted: A Love Story,” about the couple’s “difficult and soulful journey.” Becker wrote about hope and laughter, finding meaning in life’s challenges, how to survive in the midst of uncertainty and the importance of love and friendship.
“People don’t know the list of all things that Peg had to go through, and she never said ‘poor me’ or played the victim role,” Becker said.
“Peg had a way of making people believe in themselves,” he said. “She was an enormous spirit.”
The couple lived their retirement years in Green Valley, Ariz., and were married for almost 20 years.
Becker concludes his book, with Dosch continuing to fight and survive with dignity and grace and engaged in life — and grateful for each day she and her husband had together.
“If it were to come to pass that one of us dies before the other, I do not see that as an end to our relationship,” he wrote. “It will only be a change in how we relate. I find that thought comforting. Until then, we continue to hope for the best ... one day at a time.”
Terry Rindfleisch can be reached at (608) 791-8227 or trindfleisch@lacrossetribune.com.
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