P.I.N.K. group helps York breast cancer victims cope
KATHY STEVENS The York Dispatch
Article Last Updated: 04/26/2007 12:09:39 PM EDT
Melanie Hady remembers the moment she joined four women in a waiting room.
Some had hair, others did not. Each waited for treatment prescribed to halt breast cancer -- whatever kind it was. When Hady exited the waiting room and entered a treatment room, she faced a machine that emitted radiation.
As much as being blindsided by the diagnosis, the cold machine was part of the stark reality that at that moment defined her situation.
That experience also linked her to the sisterhood of breast cancer survivors. It linked her to Marie Black, Lisa Fritz, Jeanne Addison and Cindy Myers, whose shared battle prompted conversations that led them to form a network for breast cancer survivors and supporters.
The network, formed last year, became the first of its kind in York County. Their group, called P.I.N.K, now launches another first with a fundraiser to benefit only residents of this county faced with breast cancer in whatever form, stage or treatment.
The group's goal initially was to advertise the network, which pairs people who've stood in similar places, experienced similar things, because breast cancer is not a one-size-fits-all disease. There are different types, treatments, outcomes and hurdles.
Common thread: One thread, however, is that survivors know there is no cure, that cancer could recur. P.I.N.K. founders Black and Fritz sat yesterday morning at Memorial Hospital with Hady. They'd met to detail their story, to help others escape the isolation that breast cancer so often evokes.
The three women are mothers and wives. All have careers that aid the group.
Black works at a day spa and thus accesses speakers and therapies that she says help heal souls affected by this cancer. Hady earns a living in graphic design; Fritz, an OBGYN, is the director of medical education at Memorial Hospital.
The women say it's tough for those who are newly diagnosed to reach out to others, or even to admit out loud the truth of diagnosis. That's why the network is so important.
"When you're first diagnosed, you get a lot of information thrown at you," Black said. "You're not always able to mesh all that information with what is good for you."
Black's diagnosis came in 1991, just as society began to support women with breast cancer, just as women began to talk about it. She, like Hady, recalls those waiting rooms and when she recognized a drug that would cause her hair to fall out.
She asked how long that would take and what it would feel like. Just as she was told, her locks came out by the handful after 14 days of medication. "I had three strands (of hair) left," Black said. "My daughter started calling me Merlin."
That experience made it real: She had breast cancer.
Diagnosis a surprise: Hady said she wasn't considered at risk for breast cancer, which is one reason why the diagnosis knocked her for a loop.
But within a week of the news, Fritz approached her at the church they attend and said, "You're going to be OK."
"They give you information about appointments and treatments and everything else," Hady said about well-intentioned doctors and nurses and counselors. "It's just important to have someone say, 'You're going to be OK.'"
And, women also need to talk to others who say what it feels like to lose your hair, or your breasts.
Women who've been through the same treatments can tell others exactly what to expect and when. And they can lead one another toward paths of healing the soul and retrieving the sense of self and femininity.
Their paths are each different. One woman lost her uterus, breasts and hair within a six-month span. Standing before a mirror, she said, there was no choice but to further accept what had occurred and the battle she'd waged.
Like joining a club: These women say being a breast cancer survivor is "like being part of a club that you really didn't want to join."
But they value that club once they find and acknowledge it.
Black recalls her mother, who lived 40 years after her bout with breast cancer. She recalled the stretch of time that passed before her mother would look in a mirror and finally accompanying her to a survivors' luncheon.
"I remember her saying, 'Look at all of these beautiful women,'" Black said. "I think that was a defining moment for her."
-- Reach Kathy Stevens at 505-5437 or kstevens@york dispatch.com