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| DAY CELEBRATES THE SURVIVORS OF BREAST CANCER
If you think you have heard enough breast cancer stories, remember this: one in seven women. In some way, it touches everyone. That may be why the Hendrickson Auditorium was full recently for the annual Breast Health Awareness Sunday at Mills-Peninsula Health Center in San Mateo. The event was a program of the African American Community Health Advisory Committee and Mills-Peninsula Health Services with support from the American Cancer Society. Cancer, of course, does not target race or ethnicity,
but awareness, information and access to the health care system still
need a boost in African-American communities.
And the theme "Celebrate Life'' was lived out in their optimism, their sassy strut during the colorful fashion show and the intensity of the messages by panel members.
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In surely the program's most moving moment, Lillian Greer, the oldest survivor, pinned a handmade ceramic breast cancer pin on Marilyn Gibson, the youngest. Greer, a vivacious 83-year-old great-grandmother, had modeled a filmy gray-and-purple pant outfit. Gibson, Foster City mother of a 5-year-old, was diagnosed in 1999 with breast cancer that had spread to her underarm lymph nodes. She was 28. She suffered a recurrence last June and breast cancer cells were found in her liver, neck lymph nodes and chest bones. After more treatment, she happily announced that a recent CT scan did not find more cancer and that her tumor is shrinking. The audience sprang to their feet applauding. "I was so filled and trying to keep tears back,'' Greer said, recalling attaching the pin depicting spirited figures of women. "I felt compassion and hope all mixed up in that one instant.'' Panel member Anderson expressed another kind of diversity. "There are 41 million American women and men who are uninsured and, in 1999, I was one of them,'' Anderson began. It was the year they found cancer. Earlier she'd had a clear mammogram while employed at Ohlone College. She left to try her hand at freelance and grant-writing. She could not afford transitional insurance. Anderson began to notice a change in her breast -- a mass that became red, itchy and inflamed. She went online to various cancer center sites trying to match symptoms. Finally, she went to Planned Parenthood, which sent her to a county hospital. Seeking help at still another hospital, she was diagnosed with Stage 3, advanced breast cancer.
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Today, she is employed by Alameda County Social Services and, outside of work, she tries to help uninsured people learn about early detection and ways to get treated. "We should organize, fight and advocate for
our lives and improved access to health care so we don't have delayed
treatment,'' she said. Shirley Lampkin, a doctoral nursing candidate and breast health advocate, concluded, ``There may not be a cure for everything, but there is always healing and, always, there is hope.'' And that Sunday, the women agreed, was not just about surviving -- it was about living. _____ See photos from the 2002 program:
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