By Frank D. Roylance , Sun reporter|June 02, 2008
Perhaps the best news out of the National Cancer Survivors Day festivities yesterday in Baltimore was how crowded the lobby was at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall.
About 300 cancer survivors - "winners," one person preferred to call them - turned out with their friends and families for the annual celebration, far more than the 50 who attended the first event at Mercy Medical Center 11 years ago.
It's a rewarding day for all, they said, and particularly for the medical professionals who have cared for these people.
"It's great. It says more and more people are surviving," said Marsha Oakley, nursing coordinator at Mercy's Hoffberger Breast Center, which hosted the event. "I look at them coming through the door; they're healthy-looking, many are finished with their treatment. And they get a chance to talk to their physicians, but they're not coming to have something done to them."
The gathering, spiced up by refreshments, costumed jugglers, a mime in white face and a performer on stilts, is part of a national observance centered on the first Sunday in June at locations across the United States. It's marked by conversation, prayer and reflection by and for an estimated 10 million cancer survivors, with recognition for those who work in cancer treatment, research and support services.
For Robert DiMilla, 70, a retired Boston real estate agent, the day was a chance to thank the Mercy surgeon who tackled the rare appendiceal cancer doctors in Massachusetts diagnosed in 2006. His Boston physicians had offered him chemotherapy for the metastasized tumors, but little hope.
In a grueling 12 1/2 -hour operation last July, Dr. Armando Sardi, chief of surgical oncology at Mercy, removed DiMilla's appendix, gall bladder, spleen, a third of his stomach and much of his intestines before flushing his abdomen with a heated chemotherapy agent designed to kill off any remaining cancer cells.
Today, DiMillo has regained half the 34 pounds he lost; he eats as much as he wants and works out daily. And he remains cancer-free.
"Dr. Sardi, you made my day, and a lot more," he said in a teary testimonial that drew applause from his audience. "I have so much to be thankful for. I feel blessed to be here."
Sardi said cancer specialists want to see more than successful surgery. "Success for me is seeing people happy and full of life, doing what they want to do," he said, interrupting a conversation to embrace former patients. "It gives us tremendous joy."
