Tom speaks slowly, his voice barely audible, but his message “that half a life is better than none” is loud and clear.

Nearly nine years ago, doctors didn’t sugar coat the diagnosis. Tom DeFelice wouldn’t have wanted that anyway. His dentist, Kenneth Silvestri, was the one who dispelled his assumption that an allergy was the cause of his raspy voice. He detected a lump in Tom’s throat and told him to see a doctor immediately.

Tom detected the severity in Silvestri’s directive. He went through a near-death episode in 1993 when dictating a letter to a secretary in the real estate business that bears his name. He doesn’t remember the specifics of the incident. They are wiped clear of his memory. His heart went into arrhythmia. He passed out and crumpled to the floor. Miraculously, a blessing that Tom has been bestowed with, the copy machine in the adjoining office was giving them problems. A repairman was working on it at the very moment. He had been trained in CPR and instantly went to work on Tom until Warwick rescue rushed him to Kent Hospital.

He wasn’t out of the woods.

Tom was in a coma. His wife, Sandy, family and friends were afraid they would lose him. Mike Thaler, who Tom had met in the National Guard where he had enlisted to avoid being drafted and possibly sent to Vietnam, intervened. Mike insisted that Tom be transferred to Miriam Hospital. That wasn’t the final stop. From Miriam, Tom was sent to Mass General, where he spent 25 days. He was outfitted him with a defibrillator.

Tom knows many of the staff at Mass General, so that’s where he called. He didn’t waste any time, but at that point it appeared it wouldn’t have matter.

30 to 90 days to live

Tom was told he had stage 4 anaplastic cancer. The doctors gave him 30 to 90 days to live. He wanted to know the odds of his living longer. He was told zero to 4 percent. He told family and friends goodbye, yet he held on to that 4 percent. His long shot was the removal of his thyroid.

“All we were getting were negative reports,” recalls Sandy. The day of the operation, she looked Dr. Richard Hoden in the eyes and asked, “Is there any hope?”

He answered, “There is always hope.”

“I live by those words,” says Sandy, who has had her own battle with cancer.

Tom and Sandy don’t have children, but they are not without allies. Family and friends have been by their side.

Following the surgery that included the removal of a vocal cord, Tom underwent a vigorous six-month regimen of radiation and chemotherapy. He became violently ill and at one point Tom was asked if he wanted to quit. That wasn’t an option, but the road ahead was difficult. He developed a blockage in his throat. He couldn’t eat or drink. After five unsuccessful operations, Tom resigned to living with a stomach tube. During the day, Sandy feeds him every four hours four times a day.

She laughs as she recalls asking the doctor whether she might add some spice to Tom’s diet and give him a scotch and water. The doctor saw no harm with the occasional cocktail, but as Tom points out, he wouldn’t have tasted anything.

“He has a wonderful attitude,” Sandy said. “He doesn’t complain. He just does it.”

Tom and Sandy met in a hospital under quite different circumstances. Sandy was visiting her sister who had undergone surgery. Tom was visiting his grandmother who was in the adjoining room. Tom was interested.

“She was cute, so I knocked on the door and went it.” He remembers thinking, “she visits every day; she must be pretty good.”

Real estate career

It was the mid to late 1960s. Tom had graduated from the University of Miami where, after taking an elective course in real estate, he had found his career path. He was obsessed by real estate. He read just about everything to do with real estate he could get his hands. But he was also a lifeguard in Narragansett and after a day at the beach frequented the local watering holes.

On one such foray, a fellow lifeguard told Tom he was being eyed by a woman at the opposite end of the bar. There was Sandy. She gave him a double wink, but Tom was hesitant.

He told his friend, “If I go over there, I’m going to get married, and I’m not ready.”

Ready or not, that’s what happened on Aug. 24, 1968, just about a year after starting his business.

It was a head-spinning time when Tom developed the business. Yellow and black DeFelice signs popped up on properties across the state. At its zenith, DeFelice Realty had more than 200 agents. Weekends and after hours were spent with friends on their boats, dining, at shows and parties.

In 1985, Tom sold the business and spent most of his time in Florida. That all changed following his diagnosis.

In 2012, he returned full time to Rhode Island.

“I came back here to die,” he said.

Today, he operates DeFelice Energy and Executive Suites and extols the wonder of life.

The couple has a walking routine. They don’t travel far from home so as to maintain the feeding and medication schedules.

Sandy is there at his side.

Tom, his brother Roger and his sister Darlene Dino, and Sandy’s two nieces, Staci Kolb and Sheri Shunney, were there for her when she was diagnosed with colon cancer three years ago.

“We couldn’t have done it without their help,” the two chimed.

Sandy had had a colonoscopy prior to her annual checkup but thought it wise to ask her doctor for a self-administered test. The results came back positive.

“That’s what saved my life,” she said.

As Tom believes, Sandy wants their story to bring hope to others.

Certainly, they have lost a lot. That’s not where the focus should be, says Tom.

“Savor life,” he says, handing over what first appears to be a yellow DeFelice card.

It’s not. It’s what Tom calls the ABCs of success: Attitude, Belief, Commitment.