• print
• email

A life to remember

Man writes book to honor memory of daughter who died of cancer

By Julie Johnson / The Bulletin

Published: October 17. 2006 4:00AM PST

Judd Weirbach wasn't willing to let his daughter become just a statistic.

Statistics can tell part of Tiffany Weirbach's story. She was one of some 7,400 Americans who died of malignant melanoma in 2001. She was among 20- to 29-year-old women for whom melanoma is the leading cancer diagnosis. She died of a cancer that represents just 4 percent of all skin cancer diagnoses, but 79 percent of all skin cancer deaths.

But Tiffany Weirbach was also a bright, beautiful and infectiously good-natured young woman who dreamed of becoming a photojournalist and loved riding very fast motorcycles. She was determined and stubborn, a woman who wanted to marry, adopted a dog named Cessna and inspired thousands of others through a Web site she created to support women bike racers.

That's the Tiffany that Judd Weirbach wanted to share with the world.

The Bend man has published a book about Tiffany's life that he hopes will honor his daughter but also encourage patients, medical practitioners and parents to take seriously the dangers of melanoma and the importance of patients' rights.

Weirbach's book, "Dad's Girl," is about Tiffany and her battle with cancer. It's about doctors who told less than the truth. It's about finding hope in the most dim of situations and the ends to which a parent will go to try to save a child's life.

But, mostly, "Dad's Girl" is about a special relationship between a father and a daughter and how memories of their time together sustain Weirbach to this day.

Tiffany's story

Tiffany Weirbach was 21, living and working in Las Vegas, when she noticed a mole on her right leg had become sore and odd looking.

She saw a dermatologist, who removed the mole and tested it. It was malignant melanoma. Further surgery revealed the cancer had spread deeper into her tissue and into her lymphatic system, a dangerous development.

The following three years were a living hell for Judd Weirbach and his wife, Faye. They traveled incessantly between Oregon, where Weirbach had to continue farming, and Las Vegas, where Tiffany was under the care of an oncologist. They watched Tiffany suffer under the onslaught of a 13-month regimen of self-injected, cancer-fighting medication. They watched their daughter receive bad news on top of more bad news as she continued to develop new tumors. They helped her through seven surgeries. After the original treatment protocol failed, they watched Tiffany endure months of intensive chemotherapy at a cancer center in Houston. Her hair fell out. Her weight dropped to 85 pounds.

Tiffany had grown up in Las Vegas and headed back there after her parents moved to Bend in 1996. She wanted to live where she could ride motorcycles year round. She was a sport-bike rider, preferring the very fast, high-powered machines, and she developed and maintained a Web site devoted to the pursuit of sport-bike riding by women. She was known by the moniker "sportbikegirl" and had met hundreds of people in the motorcycle community through her Web site.

Although her disease weakened her at times, nothing would make Tiffany feel better than riding her motorcycle on the open road or a local track, said Weirbach. During her illness, she traveled to tracks in the U.S. and Australia, where she connected with a man she'd met through the Internet. They were later engaged, although Tiffany broke off the engagement when she realized she was not getting any better.

After Tiffany realized new tumors were growing in her body despite ongoing aggressive chemotherapy, she chose not to endure further treatments, Weirbach said. Instead, she wanted to spend what time was left to her with her family, riding her motorcycle and maintaining her Web site.

Tiffany died in October 2001, nearly three years after having that suspicious mole checked out.

'Dad's Girl'

Judd Weirbach is a farmer, not a writer, so tackling the book project was a job that required his characteristic "lead, follow or get out of the way" attitude, he said. It's a trait he shared with his daughter.

One of his most important goals, he said, was to spread the news about the danger of melanoma. Because early detection is so important to fighting the disease, Weirbach wants people to be more aware of how seemingly small changes - such as a mole darkening or getting bigger - can mean much more.

But Weirbach's book is about more than just melanoma awareness. It's about medical advocacy. It's about how parents' hearts can break. Ultimately, it's a book about Tiffany, her strength and determination, and the relationship he shared with her.

"What I learned writing the book is, number one, what a fantastic memory I have," said Weirbach, 66, from the fifth-wheel trailer he and Faye, 61, live in on their son Charlie's property during the summer and autumn months. They spend the rest of the year in Fort Worth, Texas. "It really indicates how important some of those events were in Tiffany's life."

Because "Dad's Girl" isn't just the story of Tiffany's fight against cancer. In it, Weirbach also recalls some of the significant moments he spent with his daughter through the years, such as when she first learned the joys of flying while she accompanied her dad on a practice flight in his small personal plane. Or, when she pushed her pre-adolescent self further than she thought she could while on an off-road adventure with her parents on four-wheeled ATVs. It's those moments, those memories, that keep Weirbach going.

"Money doesn't mean much aside from the fact that it's able to provide food, medicine, etc.," he said. "What's important is the memories."

Weirbach said he's grateful to have the memories of times shared with his daughter. If he had known at the beginning that Tiffany's cancer was to be fatal, he said he would have made different choices, like buying her a different motorcycle to ride each day of the week so she could be happier.

Faye Weirbach agreed, saying she's still haunted by a moment she remembers from Tiffany's childhood. As a 9- or 10-year-old, she asked her mom one night to scratch her back while they were watching TV, and Faye, after a long and tiring day, said she didn't want to.

"Do you know how often I think of that?" she said. "It just eats away at you."

Parents should also be aware of what life can be like when a catastrophic illness enters a family, Weirbach said, and his book addresses that, too. The Weirbachs had to sell their Bend ranch so they could buy a home in Las Vegas and care for Tiffany there, where her medical team was located. They racked up thousands of dollars in travel expenses on top of the medical expenses not covered by insurance, which were significant. Weirbach kept working as a custom farmer in Central Oregon even after selling the ranch, a financial necessity at the time that wracked him with guilt because he couldn't be with his ill daughter and had to leave all of the caretaking to Faye.

And all the while, Tiffany was slipping away.

"I look back now and say, 'How did I get through that?'" Faye said.

Her lesson? "Your children are the most important thing in the world."

Proceeds from the sale of "Dad's Girl" ($17.95, available at www.dadsgirl.org) will support Tiffany's Melanoma Foundation, which the Weirbachs established to help other melanoma patients with information and with the expenses of everyday living, when the foundation has donations to distribute.

Mostly, the Weirbachs just don't want the world to forget Tiffany.

Julie Johnson can be reached at 383-0308 or jjohnson@bendbulletin.com.

• print
• email