Bike's theft a hard blow for four in cancer fight

NASHUA – Debbie McCullock has been through enough: cancer, surgeries, chemo, infections and more surgeries on the horizon. Now she just wants the return of her husband’s dirt bike.

Diagnosed with breast cancer in April, McCullock had a double mastectomy in May. During the surgery, doctors found cancer in her lymph nodes and removed those, too. She also had breast reconstruction surgery.

In July, she lost one of her breast implants to an infection. In October, she spent two weeks at St. Joseph Hospital because she had an allergic reaction to her chemotherapy and then another infection took her second breast implant.

Every day during her October hospitalization, McCullock’s husband, Arthur, her 18-year-old daughter, Kylee, and her 16-year-old son, Cody, visited her. During one of those visits, someone stole Arthur’s red and white Honda 100 from the family’s Caldwell Road home, McCullock said.

“I was just dumbfounded,” Arthur McCullock said last week. “I just didn’t know what to make of it.”

The family reported the theft to police but didn’t know which day the bike was taken. So far, it hasn’t resurfaced.

The entire McCullock family has been dirt biking together for about two years. When she was diagnosed last spring, the rest of the family decided to wait until Debbie McCullock was healthy again before they pulled their bikes out.

“We all like going out in the woods, and it’s just fun,” she said. “It’s something we just all took up. It was so enjoyable that we could do it together. They were like, ‘We’re not going without you.’ That was the hardest thing. My family didn’t want to hurt my feelings by going without me.”

McCullock said that during her last hospital stay, she was looking forward to going home, healing and getting back on her bike. The theft took the wind out of her sails.

“It was devastating,” she said. “It’s just one of those things. It’s something to look forward to and now we can’t.”

McCullock is free of cancer now but still has a long road of surgeries ahead of her. Four more are scheduled, including a hysterectomy and breast reconstruction surgery, she said.

She’s hoping whoever took the bike, or someone who knows where it is, will cut her and her family a break and return it.

“It’s been a lot that I’ve gone through,” McCullock said. “Just bring it back. If someone knows where it is, just put it on my front lawn and walk away. It’s OK.”

She estimated the 3-year-old bike was worth $1,000.