Margaret Griffith, a volunteer for Wings, knows cancer from the spouse’s perspective after her husband was diagnosed with a potentially deadly form of the disease. 

“David was diagnosed with stage 3 tonsillar cancer 10 years ago,” she said.

During his first rigorous months of treatment, Wings Regional Cancer Support came to the couple’s financial rescue as the nonprofit group has for so many families. 

Created to defray out-of-pocket expenses such as transportation and housing, Wings operates through volunteers so all donations go to cancer patients.

At its annual radiothon scheduled from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday and Friday, Margaret Griffith will make her yearly guest appearance to present another year’s earnings from knitting and selling unique and colorful dishcloths.

“I pay for the yarn and I pay for the scrubby material,” Griffith said. “I sell them for $5 at Western Outdoor Store and 100 percent of the proceeds go to Wings.”

The benefit broadcasts from Sportsman & Ski Haus in Kalispell and airs over all of Bee Broadcasting’s radio stations. People who stop by to make donations also may buy $5 raffle tickets on a quilt created by Griffith’s sister-in-law Jocelyn Tonne.

“It’s a beautiful, full-sized quilt,” Griffith said. “It’s the Girl Friends pattern. They are just the cutest characters.”

Originally a volunteer helping screen calls at the radiothon, Griffith started knitting her dishcloths four years ago. Three years ago, she came up with the idea of knitting in the scrubby yarn to give a third of the cloth extra cleaning power. 

“A lot of trial and error went into that,” she said with a laugh. “But it’s really kind of cool.”

Each cloth consumes about four hours of knitting but Griffith gladly puts forth the effort. She was so happy to find a way to give back to the organization that reached out 10 years ago to help at a stressful time in her family’s life.

Griffith recalled it was in the spring/early summer when her husband’s allergies began to kick up so he went to Dr. Dennis Winkel for treatment. During the exam, the physician found a worrisome bump on David’s neck.

“Dr. Winkel said it might just be from the allergies, but you need to get this checked today,” Margaret Griffith said. 

The diagnosis put his life as a well-known multi-instrumentalist with Jack Gladstone on hold and he was sent to a VA hospital in Denver for specialized care. 

Margaret had hoped to keep working at her job in the surgical department of Kalispell Regional Medical Center to help pay the many expenses not covered by insurance. One day David called her and said that he had spent a day and a half on the floor because he was so weak he couldn’t get up.

“I decided I had to go to Denver,” she said. “He was 265 pounds and within a month he was down to 195.”

He spent four to five months in Denver and Margaret stayed for three months. They rented an apartment right across the street from the hospital.

“The rent was $1,100 for this dinky little apartment,” she said. “Wings helped us with a couple of months of rent.” 

His extremely rigorous treatment conquered his throat cancer but David paid a price with residual damage. Part of his jaw died.

“I would venture to say that he has had to have a dozen to 15 surgeries over the last 10 years,” she said.

A complicated 22-hour surgery two years ago finally seems to have ended the terrible side effects. A creative and talented plastic surgeon took bone, muscle and blood vessels from his leg to rebuild an area of his neck and jaw with adequate blood flow to keep it alive.

“It was a long haul but from my mouth to God’s ear — it seems to have worked,” she said. “And there is no cancer.”

Now 60, David still works as a musician, even playing the saxophone since the last operation. Margaret, 53, continues knitting dishcloths into dollars for Wings during breaks at work and relaxation time at their home outside Somers.

She dropped off six more of her 9-inch-by-9-inch scrubby dishcloths on Monday to replenish the basket with the Wings’ logo located at the Western Outdoor checkout area.  

“Now, I’m going to continue on my merry way and make as many as I can before Thursday,” she said. 

Margaret earned and contributed $291 her first year, $600 her second year and $766 last year. Her donation this year exceeds last year’s with more than 200 sold, thanks to Susan Munsinger at Western Outdoor and custom orders sold directly from her knitting bag.

She makes a final tally just before her guest appearance Thursday on the Wings radiothon.

“I’m going to bring them the money and give it to them on the air,” Margaret said. “It’s always quite a surprise to them how much I can make by just knitting dishcloths. I really enjoy it.”

People interested in learning more or ordering a custom dishcloth may contact her at 857-3113.

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at cchase@dailyinterlake.com.