Facing terminal cancer, former flight attendant granted final wish to fly one last time

By Ashley Sharp

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    SAN ANDREAS, California (KOVR) — A special last wish was granted for a Calaveras County hospice patient facing a daunting diagnosis.

Janet McAnnally, 79, was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer which spread to her spine. She knows she doesn’t have long, but that did not stop the former flight attendant from taking to the skies one last time.

“I know it’s going to end. I’ve accepted that. I’m not fighting against it,” McAnnally said. “It’s just something that’s happened and I’ve got to deal with it.”

Within the past few months, McAnnally decided to stop all of her cancer treatments that she felt were draining the very life from her — instead, opting to live fully in the time she has left.

“I just decided, you know, I don’t want to feel like that. I want to have a good time. So when I stopped that and signed up with hospice, it really changed my outlook and my health around,” she said.

McAnnally is now in the care of Hospice of Amador and Calaveras, receiving pain management and other services in the comfort of her home in Murphys.

“I’ve had a lovely life. So I think, one, I made that decision to stop the treatments and the physicalness of stopping made my life so much more, able to enjoy it and do things and not just sit huddled in a chair all day,” McAnnally said.

Turning the page back to 1971, McAnnally was a flight attendant for seven years for Trans World Airlines, based in Chicago.

Before she was airborne worldwide, a simple dream took flight.

“I opened the cover of my fourth-grade geography book and there was a black and white picture of the Sphinx, the pyramids. I thought, I want to see the world — and that became my obsession,” McAnnally said.

She fulfilled that dream, seeing much of the world before setting down and eventually landing in Calaveras County.

The hospice center, under its Last Wish Program, reached out to local United Airlines pilot Rob Davids to help fulfill McAnnally’s wish for one final flight high above Calaveras County.

“I just felt lucky to be part of it and give her that chance,” Davids said. “I just appreciate every flight like it’s the last.”

At 79, for the first time, McAnnally even got to pilot the plane herself during their hour-long flight.

“I think I was more excited than emotional about it until when it was done and I realized what we had just done,” McAnnally said. “It had rained earlier and so the land just looked beautiful. All the sudden, the moon began to come up and that got me, I think I got a little emotional.”

Davids even surprised McAnnally with a flight log book, commemorating her first piloted flight.

“It’s hard to describe but I’ve been flying since I was a teenager and even though I fly for a living and fly this airplane all the time, I still get the feeling of, ‘I can’t believe I get to do this.’ Being up in the air in a flying machine is just incredible,” Davids said.

If there is a takeaway in this takeoff, McAnnally is proof that being at the end of life’s runway could just be the start of a new journey.

“There’s no point, even if it’s only a month or two left, to sit around and do nothing and moan and cry about it; better to cry happy tears and enjoy as much as you can,” McAnnally said.

Hospice of Amador and Calaveras earlier this year also fulfilled a patient’s final wish to pet a horse one last time. The center’s leaders say their Last Wish Program is dedicated to bringing comfort and joy to patients in their final days.

“Moments like these remind us of the profound impact we can have on our patients’ lives. We are committed to ensuring that every individual can create lasting memories during their time with us,” said Melissa Justice, director of community relations at the hospice center.

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