Nearly 17 years after first learning he had one kidney and a rare form of cancer, Torrington’s James Harris entered the new year this month still carrying the perfectly functioning kidney his wife gave him in 2021.
But doctors also told him he was reaching the end of the line. His prognosis is terminal.
The 54-year-old longtime Union Pacific locomotive diesel mechanic said he’s not bitter. He stands on faith and remains thankful for the legacy he sees already at work in the couple's four children.
“I just pretty much want to have some quality time with my wife and kids and get some time with my friends,” he said. “I’m happy just sitting around the dining room table eating supper. … Just being able to hang out with my wife and kids, just getting to talk about the day is my No. 1.”
A native of Gordon, Nebraska, he and Tara were high school sweethearts and have spent 31 years together forging a life first in Nebraska and then Torrington.
The former high school athlete and avid fisherman remembers the day that his marathon of illness began. It was Easter Sunday in 2009, and he was “really sick.” He went to the emergency room.
Harris was diagnosed with pneumonia, but more shocking was that for the first time in his life he learned through radiology scans that he had one kidney and there was a huge mass on it that appeared as though it was going to burst.
“So, they put me in an ambulance and sent me to Denver to the University of Colorado (hospital) that night,” he said. “I had pneumonia which basically saved my life.”
The tumor on the kidney was cancerous and removed along with half of the organ. He spent time on dialysis until his remaining kidney started functioning.
One year later he wasn’t feeling well. More scans showed another cancerous tumor on the kidney. Harris went through a second surgery and was left with a quarter of a kidney.
More dialysis, and again what was left of his kidney started working.
“And the next year, which would have been 2011, it spread to my lung,” he said. They took part of his lung, and he went into remission until 2021.
Harris said in December 2020 his quarter of a kidney started failing. Dialysis again was mentioned as the alternative while a donor was sought.
A Donation
Tara Harris, 53, a nurse in the ICU at Regional West Medical Center in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, knew she was the same blood type as her husband and asked to be tested. The process to see if she could be his kidney donor took two months. She was a match.
“They said, OK we’re going to get this going,” Tara said. “Honestly, for anybody out there thinking about being a donor, it is an easy process. The recovery was easy, I have no side effects at all.”
The community and their Lutheran church family stepped in to help with fundraisers and meals for the kids as the couple stayed in Denver for six weeks after the surgery to ensure that James had no rejection issues.
James Harris, as he had after recovery from his other surgeries, went back to work for Union Pacific putting in 12-hour shifts. In December 2022, a checkup revealed potential cancer in his neck. A biopsy showed that the kidney cancer had spread to the thyroid gland. His original quarter kidney, which had not been removed, also had a mass on it.
“Surgery didn’t look like it was going to be very feasible,” James Harris said. “The tumor was kind of attached to my stomach and stuff.”
His Denver specialists considered radiation, but that was ruled out because in the process of trying to map out the radiation, a scan of his body revealed more cancer in his liver. Initial chemotherapy proved ineffective. The effects of an oral chemo drug were “brutal,” James Harris said.
He kept working until May 2025, until he understood he could no longer do the manual labor.
James has since started a new oral chemotherapy drug with minimum side effects, but his doctors have given him a timeline for life of six months to a year “with the way things are progressing.”
Tests showed he has no genetic cause for the cancer which typically shows up when people are in their 60s. Early in his working career, James worked as a welder, he surmises it is possible it could be linked to breathing in some kind of toxic smoke.
Preparing
The couple and their family have chosen to respond to the diagnosis the best way they know how. Tara Harris said as the “caretaker” she is trying to prepare things to be as easy as possible. The “nurse” in her that sends ICU patients home on hospice care knows that “it’s hard dying in a hospital.”
“So, that’s why we’re trying to get the shower fixed upstairs,” she said. “I just want to make sure that (at) his end of life he can be home; he can be with his family. My other priority is to make everything very easy, a good transition for my kids.”
Erin Bennick created a GoFundMe campaign for the family in late November to help with a needed shower remodeling and other ongoing medical costs the family faces. It exceeded its goal. She initially met Tara at a job in Torrington, and they became friends “and raised our children together.”
Bennick said the community has rallied in large and small ways over the years to support the family during the various challenges with the surgeries and medical bills. There have been yard sales, donation cans, other fundraisers, and during the kidney transplant another GoFundMe campaign.
She characterizes the Harris family as “very inspiring.”
“Through it all they see the positive,” Bennick said. “They’re still willing to do anything they can for anybody else.”
The Harris couple say they have tried to make memories for their children as the options for treatment narrowed and the prognosis for James became bleaker.
There have been trips to see the Green Bay Packers play and a fishing trip for the family in Florida.
Tara Harris said their children, Logan, 27, Corbin 23, Gabrielle, 19, and Xander, 18, have basically grown up with a dad who has struggled with his health. They accompanied their parents to the hospital and appointments as youngsters.
“My kids are amazing, they are so resilient,” Tara Harris said. “When the kids were little, the nurses would line up all the chairs in the room, and all four kids would be sitting there with their little bag of toys and snacks.”
Need To Be ‘Strong’
Tara said she knows she needs to be “strong” for her husband and children, and the couple both have leaned on their faith and friends at their church. She sees “blessings” that have come from the challenges that go back to 2009.
James Harris said he has never been bitter about his diagnosis but has “gotten angry” for what his family has had to deal with during his down times with sickness.
“I’ve always been able to work and that’s kind of a tough feeling being kind of helpless,” he said.
In her work in the ICU, Tara Harris has had the opportunity to share her family’s struggles with patients and let them know that she can relate. It’s made a difference in others’ lives.
“People come up to him all the time and say what a blessing he is, how much encouragement they have, and they’re so thankful for his story,” she said of her husband. “So, we do feel lucky in that way and there really have been a lot of blessings that come with it, but it’s also hard.”
James Harris recently took his oldest son who has a passion for the outdoors and fishing out for lunch and errands. Both like to fish. He hopes to figure out how many portable oxygen tanks he would need to do that with Logan again.
His 23-year-old son, Corbin, like his father enjoys cooking. James sees his legacy at work. There is some home-made pastrami in the refrigerator that is destined for his smoker in a few days.
The No. 1 lesson he’s learned is “don’t take your family for granted,” James Harris said. “And you know, strong faith in God, that’s pretty much what I get out of all of this. Just don’t take things for granted because you just don’t know. Everybody has their struggles.”
The Denver-based oncologist who treats James will call him from time to time and check in on his patient. Often it is a Sunday night. The doctor has told Harris that “I make him think.”
“I should have been gone a long time ago,” James Harris said. “It’s a brutal cancer. There’s only so many treatments for it. There’s no cure for it at this time. So, I’ve been extremely blessed in that point that I’ve been here this long.”
Contact Dale Killingbeck at dale@cowboystatedaily.com
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
