DAV helps Army veteran leave lasting legacy for family after burn pit cancer battle By Mary Dever S even-year-old Cole McNorrill wore his mother’s dog tags and Army uniform to career day at his school in Aiken, S.C. He wants to be a soldier like his mom when he grows up. But his mother—Ashley McNorrill—will never have the chance to see that dream come true for her little boy. She succumbed to cancer in 2016. Ashley and husband David had married in 2008. Not long after, they looked to expand their family, but Ashley found herself experiencing unexplained pain and fertility problems. “Around the summer of 2011, I was beginning to have really severe pains in my belly and on my right side under my rib cage,” Ashley said, in an interview before her death. “The pain was so severe I’d curl up in the fetal position while in a hot bath because the pain medicine was not helping at all.” The cause was initially thought to be endometriosis, a relatively common health condition among women that causes uterine tissue to grow outside the uterus. Doctors recommended Ashley undergo a hysterectomy. The McNorrills then pursued adoption as a path to parenthood, and on Dec. 2, 2011, they welcomed their new sons to the world—twin boys, Cole and Fletcher. “After we brought the boys home, she admitted the cramping was getting really bad,” said David. “So we decided she should get the hysterectomy. I told her, Ashley McNorrill (top right)—pictured here with husband, David, and twin boys, Cole and Fletcher— wasn’t diagnosed with appendiceal cancer until it was already at stage 4. Because her particular type of cancer is hard for doctors to detect, it is often terminal for the one in a million people diagnosed with it each year. ‘Let’s get that done so you can raise these boys.’” In February 2012—when the twins were only 2 months old—Ashley went in for a hysterectomy. During the procedure, doctors found evidence of cancer. “We didn’t know exactly what kind it was,” said David. “Appendix cancer doesn’t spread like other cancers; it peppers the inside of your belly. So we didn’t know if it was uterine, ovarian or what.” Ashley was ultimately diagnosed with stage 4 appendiceal cancer, a rare form of the disease occurring in only one or two cases out of 1 million. She joined a support group online, and there she met a Marine Corps veteran who suggested she talk to someone about her exposure to burn pits in Iraq to see if her cancer was service connected. An Army JAG officer, Ashley deployed to Iraq in January 2005 and was assigned to Camp Victory, in Baghdad. “There was a burn pit just a few feet across from the 8 DAV MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2019 | DAV.ORG
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GONE TOO SOON
Mary Dever
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