Cancer survivor tells tale of hope:
Sunday, March 19, 2006
By D.L. STEPHENSON
dstephenson@repub.com
SPRINGFIELD - For Jerry Hanks and Bobbi de Cordova-Hanks, the keynote speakers at yesterday's ninth annual Celebrating Life: Breast Cancer Survivors' Day event at the Sheraton Hotel, cancer is not a death sentence. It's a wake-up call.
During their talk, "In Sickness and in Health: A Survivor and Caregiver Share Their Story of Tears and Hope," Bobbi de Cordova-Hanks talked about surviving cancer and Jerry Hanks spoke about losing his first wife to ovarian cancer and then later supporting Bobbi during her three separate struggles with breast, thyroid and skin cancer.
The couple authored "Tears of Joy: In Sickness and in Health a Cancer Survivor and Caregiver Share Their Story," which was available yesterday.
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Survivors' Day is sponsored by Rays of Hope and the Comprehensive Breast Center at Baystate Medical Center.
"I was given five years to live when I was diagnosed in 1986 with metastatic breast cancer, but I come from a family of activists," said Bobbi de Cordova-Hanks, who founded Bosom Buddies in Jacksonville, Fla., an organization that provides a variety of supports for women diagnosed with breast cancer.
For Pamela C. Noyes, of Greenfield, who was diagnosed with breast cancer last year at the age of 32, surviving became "a mission."
"I didn't have time to die. I wanted to live, and I wanted to beat this," said Noyes, one of more than 200 people who attended yesterday's Survivors' Day.
Various businesses, groups and organizations set up tables, providing products, services and information to women recovering from breast cancer and undergoing breast cancer treatment.
According to Judy LeBold, director of fund-raising for Baystate Medical Center, money raised by Rays of Hope remains in Western Massachusetts to provide breast cancer education programs and support of all kinds for women who need it.
This year's annual Rays of Hope fund-raising walk is slated for October 29 at Temple Beth El in Springfield.
One of the workshops and talks offered yesterday included "Herceptin and Targeted Therapies for Breast Cancer: What a Difference a Drug Can Make," led by Wilson C. Mertens, medical oncologist and medical director of cancer services for the Baystate Regional Cancer Program at Baystate Medical.
"There are 300 new diagnoses of breast cancer per year (at Baystate), but more patients are less at risk for serious breast cancer," Mertens said of new technologies that spot cancer in its earliest stages.
Today, the average age of a breast cancer patient is 56, which is seven years younger than the average age in 1980, Mertens said.
However, there is still a huge disparity in the survival rate between black and Hispanic women and their white counterparts."