“My faith is stronger than ever” – Ed Herring

Labor Day, September 7, 2020, was the day Warren County Supervisor Ed Herring found out why he didn’t have any energy.

He was in Lake Charles visiting family when he realized he shouldn’t feel like that.

“I thought I had a blockage. I had gotten where I was out of breath so bad. I made an appointment here in town after I came back and was home by myself and said I wasn’t going to lay here and die. I went to the ER,” explained Herring. The ER doctor ordered an X-Ray of his chest.

“The doctor came out and said ‘Mr. Herring, your heart is three times the size it’s supposed to be,” said Herring. “That’s when they did the CT and told me I had a tumor.”

At the time they thought the tumor was the size of a baseball, but it turned out to be much larger.

Aggressive chemotherapy was ordered and after seven treatments, Herring is feeling a lot better and the tumor has shrunk from the size of a football to the size of a black-eyed-pea.

With five more chemo treatments to go, Herring admits to feeling fatigued sometimes but said, “I feel much better. But when I feel good, Buddy, I’m coming out of that house.”

“When we sat down with the oncologist, the first thing out of his mouth was ‘I don’t know if you are a believer. But if you believe, me and God are going to cure you. I’m not going to make you better. I’m not going to make you stronger. I’m going to heal you,” Herring said.

“That’s all you can ask for, someone committed to the Lord.”

The conversation shifted to his family and Herring noted, “I think the stronger I get, the stronger they get. My mom and my son have been my drivers. Because there for a while, you know, that medicine…I didn’t trust myself to drive. I’ve gotten over that too now. I trust myself now. I don’t feel so weak and out of it.”

Of his peers, Herring said, “The other board members have been great. Everybody jumped in there. When a phone call came in they’d go out and meet people and talk to people. Everybody has been so supportive. It’s been a life experience. New respect for someone who says they’ve been through a cancer experience. I’ve got a new respect for them.”