Meet Ronda DCamp

Ronda DCamp
Hometown: Luana, IA
Family: Husband, Doug & Sons, Jarod and Scott

Professional Background

I grew up on a farm near Luana, IA with my parents, three sisters, and one brother. I graduated from Postville High School and then went on to college at Iowa State University in Ames, IA, and earned my bachelor of science degree in computer science. I worked in information technology for over 38 years.

When I first started, we used keypunch machines for our program source and data because disc space was expensive. PCs, Microsoft, and Apple did not yet exist. Over the years, I had lots of continuing education classes to keep up with new development in the field and also continued to work with the old technologies that hadn’t been replaced.

Family Background

I retired in 2014 to become full-time caregiver for my husband, Douglas (Doug), who was disabled because of Parkinson’s and some additional conditions that he developed. We moved from Buffalo, MN, to Moorhead to be closer to our children and grandchildren. We have two sons: Jarod, who lives in West Fargo with his wife, Sara, and their three children, and Scott, who lives in Thief River Falls with his wife and son. I currently have Jarod and Sara’s beautiful part-Siamese cat with blue eyes staying with me.

My husband passed away unexpectedly in November 2016.

One of the things I learned while being a caregiver was to accept help from those who offered it. If someone offered to bring us a meal, we let them. If someone wanted to drop by for a visit, we welcomed them. I stopped being concerned about how my house looked and did the basics, but also just sat with Doug, watched TV with him, talked with him, laughed and cried with him.

Helping with my grandchildren has been a blessing for me, especially after my husband passed away. We attempted to make their lives as normal as possible while things were not normal as Sara underwent treatment. I picked up the two older kids after school and stayed at Jarod and Sara's house with the kids until they were home from work or appointments. The kids would stay overnight with me some Friday nights and we’d have root beer floats because that’s what they did with Grandpa Doug on Fridays. Their third child considers me his personal playmate which I just love.

Why Love Your Buns is Important to me?

Doug’s father had colon cancer when he was 36 years old. He didn’t have chemo. He had two other times where part of his colon was removed because of the cancer returning, once when he was in his 50s and again in his 70s. Because of his dad’s history, I pushed for Doug to get a colonoscopy when he was in his early 30s. Amazingly, he had a primary care doctor who had no problem giving him a referral to get a colonoscopy. We did not know that this was not the way it usually went! Doug had a baseline colonoscopy which found no cancer or polyps, but one of his brothers also had an early colonoscopy and had a couple polyps removed. I'm not sure what my contributions will be to Love Your Buns, I just know I want to be involved.

Toilet paper: over or under? The toilet paper roll should definitely be UNDER. I did hear that the inventor intended it to be OVER, but I prefer under because it doesn’t unroll so easily. The cat doesn’t play with it as much when it’s under.