Mike Broderick.Photo:Emily Broderick
Emily Broderick
One night in May, after he had returned to the firehouse after battling a blaze, Emily Broderick got a text from husband, Mike Broderick, complaining of stomach pain.
”It was actually the night before my birthday,” Emily, 46, tells PEOPLE. After he went to the bathroom and saw that his urine was brown, she insisted he go straight to the emergency room.
Mike, 51, and Emily, who have been married for 25 years and raised four children, initially thought that he had kidney stones. But after he went to the hospital, Mike learned he hadcholangiocarcinoma, or bile duct cancer.
It is unclear how Mike, a firefighter and Army veteran contracted the rare disease. “He is quite honestly the healthiest person I know,” Emily says. “Cancer was the last thing on our radar.”
Mike Broderick.Emily Broderick
Mike and Emily first met in 1994 and married four years later. The same year they got hitched, Mike enlisted in the Army — and he was a first responder when thePentagon was attacked on 9/11.
After he and Emily left Washington, D.C., where he was stationed, to start a family in Iowa, Mike joined the National Guard and became a firefighter — a job he’s held for 16 years.
“The number of firefighters that come sit and spend time with him, it’s overwhelming,” says Emily. “They’ve been amazing.”
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And although getting up and doing things isn’t always easy, Emily shares that her husband, who is now on desk duty due to his illness, “tries to be positive.”
“He’s not a quitter,” she says. “He doesn’t know how to quit.”
Emily and Mike Broderick.Emily Broderick
Tyler Mark, Mike’s friend and a fellow Des Moines firefighter, introduced the Brodericks to Building Homes for Heroes. Founded in 2006 after the 9/11 attacks, the organization has gifted over 300 homes to veterans.
“He actually came up to the hospital when Mike was in for an infection here in Des Moines, and he introduced himself to me," Emily tells PEOPLE. “He said, ‘I’m on this board of directors [for Building Homes for Heroes], and I’m going to try to make it possible so that we can pay off your mortgage and Mike can focus on his cancer fight.’”
“Mike and I both burst into tears,” she adds.
Mike and Emily Broderick with their children.Emily Broderick
In an interview withABC affiliate WOI-DT, Mark said that Mike has spent “his whole adult life [giving] back to the community and the country.”
“Mike has always stepped up and answered the call when others needed help and he’s always done it quietly and professionally,” he said. “Now it’s time for Mike to focus and take care of himself and the community to help support Mike.”
In addition to the organization’s help, another friend of Mike’s started aGoFundMeto help provide financial support for the Broderick family. Emily says the generosity shown to her family has been “so humbling and profound.”
“There’s help everywhere, but we never could have imagined this," Emily tells PEOPLE. “It has been the best gift I never wanted to receive.”
source: people.com
