Luling shift firefighter Joseph Riebow, 39, who’s fight against leukemia was documented in the Jan. 1 edition of the St. Charles Herald-Guide, died on Jan. 8.
Riebow was scheduled for a final chemotherapy treatment on Jan. 5, but a biopsy had to be done on his liver, which prevented any more chemotherapy treatments until it repaired itself. Jennifer, Riebow’s wife, said that on the evening of Jan. 7 her husband’s blood pressure suddenly dropped as a result of liver failure. By the next evening, he had passed away.
“They said it was medically impossible that he lived as long as he did [after the liver failure],” Jennifer said. “Everyone has been pretty much in shock.”
Prior to working as a shift firefighter for a Luling chemical plant, Riebow was a shore tankerman. According to Jennifer, doctors suspect that exposure to chemicals in that capacity may have accelerated the development of his cancer.
Riebow was diagnosed shortly before Thanksgiving with acute lymphocytic leukemia, a form of cancer that affects the blood. The treatments required Riebow to undergo multiple rounds of chemotherapy. Only days before Christmas, his second round was administered. The third round occurred a few days later.
“Everything happens for a reason,” Riebow said in December. “I’ve been thanking God from day one, and I still thank him.”
In addition to his wife, Riebow leaves behind two stepsons—Chris Callais, 15, and Dustin Boone, 20—as well as a daughter, Gabriella, 13, and a baby son, Wyatt.
“Hold on to what you got,” Jennifer said.
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