Friends & Neighbors: Teaching a passion for Freeman

By Lara Hayes

Looking at Debbie Freeman, you’d never know she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2000. And that’s just the way she likes it.

“The day I was diagnosed, I told my neurologist, ‘I don’t want people to say ‘Oh, poor Debbie, she has MS.’ I want to be the same me I’ve always been,” she said.

Freeman’s first love was teaching, and she spent a lot of time playing “school” during her growing up years in Bradenburg, Ky.

“I loved all my teachers,” she said. “They had a big impact on my life. They made learning very pleasant and challenging. I still see some of them when I go home,” she said.

After graduating from Campbellsville College in 1973 with a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in elementary education, she headed south to Dalton when a friend told her the school system here was hiring.

“Bill Hargis was assistant superintendent then. I was hired to teach fourth grade at Dawnville Elementary,” Freeman said.

She stayed at Dawnville for two years, then transferred to Varnell Elementary. Freeman and her husband, Cecil, married in 1979 and bought a house in the Dug Gap community. Freeman began looking for a job closer to home and landed one teaching fourth grade at Dug Gap Elementary. In 1982, she began working in the Alpha program for gifted kids, a position she kept for 19 years.

“ I was at four schools initially,” she said. “The hardest part was getting the kids who were being tested for ‘gifted’ to feel good about themselves. You just have to make kids feel good about themselves, no matter what. I loved it, loved the challenge and change.”

Freeman had been with the program 18 years when she began suffering dizzy spells. Following endless rounds of medical tests, she was given her diagnosis. She says she knew it all along.

“My youngest brother, John Mark, has it too, and I was familiar with a lot of his symptoms,” said Freeman. “Whenever you think about MS, you think about someone in a wheelchair and that’s not always the case. It affects different people different ways.”

She went on teaching as normal and kept quiet about her diagnosis with her students. After a while, however, Freeman saw there was going to be a problem because the disease began affecting her cognitive abilities.

“It took me three times as long to get the job done as it used to. I started thinking that to be fair to my kids I’d better apply for retirement,” she said. “I wrote the parents a sweet letter, telling them why I had to leave. The kids didn’t want me to quit. That letter was really hard to write. If I could, I’d still be working.”

As a goodbye gift to her students, Freeman had T-shirts made with a quote from Albert Einstein she wanted to leave them with: “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”

“That was what I had always tried to instill in my students … teach them to think and learn in new and different ways,” she said.

Freeman learned of the MS Walk in spring 2002 and put a team together. The team raised nearly $5,000 for the National MS Society and was the top team in the area, according to Freeman. As a result, she got to attend an awards ceremony and became an active member. Another member approached Freeman about starting a MS self-help group in Dalton, which she gladly agreed to do. Approximately 25 people showed up for the first meeting.

“I was thrilled with the response, it was phenomenal,” said Freeman. “I told them ‘This is not a pity party. We’re not here to whine about our MS. We’re here to make the best of it and learn how to deal with it.’”

The group met once a month at Western Sizzlin but over time attendance began to dwindle. Sometimes only three or four people would show up. Last fall, Freeman decided to end the meetings.

“People with MS ... sometimes they feel good, sometimes they don’t,” she said. “Some can drive, some can’t. But I’ve made some dear friends through that group who I still keep in touch with.”

Freeman’s type of MS is referred to as relapsing/remitting, which means the patient may have flare-ups and then go into remission that may last for months or even years. Freeman considers herself lucky and blessed.

“I can just say thank you Lord, I don’t have cancer,” said Freeman. “This is not a life-threatening disease. I’ve had several friends who’ve had cancer. I think a lot of it has to do with attitude ... trying to remain positive.”