Cancer Survivors Reach Out In The Fight Against

A Life-Threatening And Life-Changing Disease

By Kaaren Valenta

Shane Miller, Barbara Baldino, and Joan Storms are cancer survivors. Each of their stories is different. But all are typical of the more than 70 survivors who will be taking part in Newtown’s first Relay For Life on Saturday night at the high school stadium.

“When you are diagnosed with cancer, all of a sudden your whole life becomes different and it continues that way on a daily basis throughout your treatment,” Ms Baldino said. “It truly changes your life.”

Members of the relay’s survivorship committee, the women did not know each other until they signed up to participate in the local Relay For Life. Soon the committee had 14 members including eight cancer survivors.

“I saw the article in The Bee about the first meeting,” Joan Storms said. “I had just finished chemotherapy for ovarian cancer and decided I would like to reach out to other survivors. But it was very hard for me. It was a very big step [in my recovery] to come and sign up.”

Shane Miller found out about the relay when she called Ann’s Place and the American Cancer Society, looking for an opportunity to mentor to other breast cancer survivors.

“While I was undergoing treatment, I never saw so many young women also undergoing treatment,” she said. “These are women who are not old enough to have taken estrogen. Cancer hits everybody, absolutely everybody. It doesn’t discriminate.”

Barbara Baldino, who also survived breast cancer, agrees. She was only 35 years old when she was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer.

“When I was in treatment, I was meeting so many women that had young babies, “ she aid. “My cancer buddy was still nursing her child. She wasn’t diagnosed until it was too late.”

Ms Baldino’s cancer did not show on a mammogram, a sonogram, or in a needle biopsy but it was still there, a large, dense mass in her breast.

“Nightly I could notice a change,” she said. “I had a total radical mastectomy with ten positive lymph nodes involved. I had 12-hour surgery to remove the cancer and take from my stomach muscle to rebuild the breast.”

She also was part of a clinical trial that is now standard procedure in the treatment of her type of breast cancer. “I have no history of breast cancer but my husband’s family does — both the women and the men — so our children will be tested for the Brac 1 and 2 genes, which are the only ones they can isolate and study.”

Ms Baldino had walked on a Relay For Life team in Mahopac, N.Y. A member of the St Rose of Lima parish, she knew Ivette Gerics, a longtime American Cancer Society volunteer who had decided to start a Relay for Life in Newtown.

“I was approaching my fifth year cancer-free so I decided to get involved,” she said.

Shane Miller also had no idea that she had breast cancer. She was having a physical exam before leaving on vacation to Florida two years ago when her doctor found a lump in her breast.

“All my tests were negative — the mammogram, the ultrasound, the biopsy, all negative. So I waited until I came back from Florida to have it removed,” she said. “A week later the surgeon called and said ‘we have to talk.’”

She completed chemotherapy and radiation a year ago.

“Women of all ages have to know their bodies and self-exam,” she said. “Many women, especially the postmenopausal ones, often say that they don’t want to know [if they have cancer]. But there is so much that can be done. It is not a death sentence.”

Joan Storms had not been feeling well last summer, experiencing indigestion, back pain, and pain in the pelvic area.

“I thought I had a bladder infection,” she said. “The gynecologist decided to do an ultrasound. It was July 3 at 6 pm. They found a tumor the size of a large grapefruit on my right ovary. My doctor saved my life.”

“So you don’t let anything ever go,” Ms Baldino agreed. “If something is telling you that something isn’t right in your body, you have to pay attention and [seek] treatment.”

“The big message is you shouldn’t be afraid. You can fight this. You can beat it,” she said.

Cancer patients often go through rigorous treatment with surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, with treatments sometimes on a daily basis, but once it is over, they find it hard to resume their normal lives.

“Once you finish the treatment, you are pushed out, on your own,” Shane Miller said. “You have to pick up your life and go on. Go out an help other women go through this. I didn’t even know one person when I attended the first Relay For Life meeting. I was amazed at the incredible amount of people that attended.

“But now I know so many people. My mailman saw my Relay For Life sign and told me that he has a team for the relay, too.”

Besides the three women interviewed for this article, the survivorship committee includes Peg Redmond, Dr Theresa Piotrowski, Kathy Kovatch, Pat DeMaida, Camille Kalbacher, Gary Storms, and cancer survivors Jill Collins, Pat Parkel, Patty Noone, Trish McCusker, and Beth Cluff.

“Every one of the cancer survivors has a story, but we won’t be telling them that night,” Ms Baldino said. “This is a night to raise the money for a cure. I think people have waited a long time for the relay to come to Newtown.”