Cancer Survivors

Married patients suffering from advanced lung cancer are likely to live longer after treatment than those who aren't hitched, according to research released today. The study by researchers at the University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Cancer Center in Baltimore found that 33 percent of married patients with the most common type of stage III lung cancer were still alive three years after treatment. Only 10 percent of single patients were alive three years after undergoing chemotherapy and radiation.

Nancy Becraft has a T-shirt from each year Laurel has held a Relay for Life, and has witnessed the growth of the event since the first relay in 1999. "We only started out with about 11 teams," Becraft said. This year there are 40 teams, and counting. The American Cancer Society's Relay for Life is a summer fundraising and awareness event organized in thousands of communities across the country. Participants, many of whom are cancer survivors and their families or friends, form teams and spend the evening walking laps around a track and enjoying planned entertainment.

Most of all, Marianne Kelly remembers the embarrassment.She felt her face redden and the tears come when, after surgery for a brain tumor, an unthinking aide tugged away the scarf that hid Mrs. Kelly's bald head from the world."

On April 19, psychology major Kaitlin Ames of Churchville participated in Stevenson University's Relay for Life Event. More than $38,000 was raised to support the American Cancer Society. More than 500 Stevenson University community members gathered together in the Owings Mills Gymnasium to participate in the American Cancer Society's Relay For Life, a 12-hour overnight event, symbolizing a night in the life of someone fighting cancer, a disease that never sleeps. Relay teams made up of friends, family, classmates, clubs and local businesses raised funds throughout the year and at the event to support American Cancer Society programs in cancer research, education, advocacy and patient services.

If you can bear the pun, these breast cancer survivors are all in the same boat. And they are paddling as if their lives depended on it. Cheryl Brower, three years out from being diagnosed with cancer, has organized a group of women with breast cancer from Baltimore, Annapolis and Washington to take up the oars of a huge dragon boat. The women will be competing in Saturday's dragon boat races at Tide Point Waterfront Park near the Domino's Sugar plant. "It is the best team sport ever invented, and I've been in team sports all my life," said Brower, an Ellicott City attorney and mother of four who has competed in dragon boat races internationally.

When she heard Mercy Medical Center was going to celebrate National Cancer Survivors Day on Sunday, Megan Campbell knew she had to be there. The doctors and nurses at Mercy are, after all, the reason her two kids got to know their grandmother. The six years since her mother, Priscilla "Jo" Jones, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, Campbell said, have meant the world to her family. At the time, Campbell was pregnant, and she wasn't even sure Jones would see the birth of her first grandchild.

Being seen.That was the point yesterday at the Fifth Regiment Armory. Being seen walking and talking and smiling and enjoying a muggy Sunday afternoon in Baltimore.In other words, being alive.For two hours, the armory showcased defiance to a deadly disease. In Baltimore's first celebration of National Cancer Survivors Day, 1,000 survivors and their families assembled under red, white and blue bunting to munch on hot dogs, listen to music and thumb their noses at an illness too readily perceived as unconquerable.

The terrifying discovery of the lump in their breasts. The surgery, the chemo, the radiation. All of that was behind them, maybe six months behind them, maybe five years behind them. But behind them. The women had taken up life where it had stopped, suddenly, with the devastating diagnosis of breast cancer. Taking care of husbands, kids, aging parents. Working, cooking, cleaning, volunteering. And everyone around them was so happy to see them back. But these women weren't back. Dr. Kathy J. Helzlsouer, breast cancer specialist at Mercy Medical Center, was hearing whispered complaints of fatigue.

A band of some 40 cancer survivors wearing purple ribbon sashes gathered on the oval running track at Owings Mills High School yesterday evening to kick off the American Cancer Society's "Relay for Life."The group walked the first lap of an 18-hour fund-raiser for cancer research, in which teams of 10 to 15 were to walk or run around the track -- one person at a time -- until noon today.Georgene Batz, 59, of Reisterstown was among the survivors. As she rounded the first turn of the track, she said she was reminded of just how much cancer had changed her life.

When Nancy Slaterbeck came out of anesthesia after her cancerous left breast was amputated at Johns Hopkins Hospital three weeks ago, all she wanted to do was sleep and get rid of the "unbearable" pain in her arm.But the main concern for some members of the recovery room staff seemed to be getting rid of her, the 51-year-old Towson woman told a Maryland Senate committee yesterday."

- A lazy Sunday morning. Arising later than usual. A long week of work in the books, a promising week ahead. Now living in Armenia, I correspond regularly with colleagues, friends and family back home in the States. Birds chirp as I check some emails and enter the social media labyrinth. And there I found them: farewell messages written to my friend, Anne Smedinghoff, 25, praising her brilliance, grace and kindness. She was delivering a truck full of books to schoolchildren when it happened.

Before she joined the sea of pink-clothed people who turned out for a breast cancer walk in Baltimore Sunday morning, Janet Warren filled out a medical history and gave a blood sample. It was a different way to show her commitment to the cause - one that will last for years. The American Cancer Society is recruiting adults who haven't had cancer to take part in a broad, long-lasting prevention study, the latest in a string of studies that date back 60 years. The nonprofit group hopes that by collecting health and lifestyle information from 300,000 Americans, it can help researchers find more clues to the frustrating mystery that is cancer - and develop more ways of battling it. Participants agree to send updates every few years for the next two to three decades.

Before he competes in a local triathlon this weekend, Lance Armstrong will speak at a panel discussion in Ellicott City. Armstrong will appear Saturday at a discussion being called Lance Unplugged where, among other things, he promises to address why he decided to compete in Ulman's Half Full Triathlon which happens the following day in and around Centennial Park in Howard County. Ulman announced two weeks ago that Armstrong would compete in the event's half distance, which includes a .9-mile swim, a 56-mile bike ride and a 13.1-mile run. He'll race with cancer survivors in and around Centennial Park while athletes compete in a different segment of the race.

On Saturday, Oct. 6, TownMall of Westminster will host Paint TownMall Pink, an event aimed at raising awareness of breast cancer treatment and prevention. The event will take place at Center Court from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The organizations sponsoring and participating include Advanced Radiology, American Cancer Society, Beautiful Faces Permanent Makeup Salon, Carroll Homecare and Hospice, The Women's Place at Carroll Hospital Center, Carroll County Health Department and Carroll Regional Cancer Center.

On the first mile of her three-mile swim Sunday morning, Susan Spencer concentrated on the 25 names written in black marker on her right arm - those of friends and family members who had succumbed to cancer. On her second lap, the Baltimore lawyer reflected on the 14 names of cancer survivors or those in remission scrawled on her left arm. For the final mile, Spencer, 61, said she thought of "everyone and anyone affected by the disease. " She was not alone. In the cove off Gibson Island or in the pool at Meadowbrook Aquatic and Fitness Center in North Baltimore, more than 500 swimmers participated in Swim Across America, Baltimore edition, to raise money for the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins.

Organizers of the charitable Half Full Triathlon are thrilled Lance Armstrong will compete in their October Howard County race. But critics in the sports community aren't sharing their enthusiasm. Because Armstrong has been banned for life from all sports governed by federations, organizers of the 3-year-old Half Full had to give up their status as a sanctioned race to welcome him, losing the prestige that comes with that status and opening the door to critics who say Armstrong's tarnished reputation stains the event.

In January 1984, Hodgkin's disease ripped like a cyclone into the lives of Edward Mehl, then 24, and his wife, Valerie, who was 22.Lymph cancer was a force that threatened the young couple's marriage, then bonded it tighter than before and changed the direction of Mrs. Mehl's career from banking to communications.The impact cancer had on the Mehls' lives after the disease retreated is typical of what many cancer survivors find. Coming eyeball to eyeball with mortality jolts some survivors and their spouses into a deeper realization of what is important in life.

When Raymond Bencak came to John Hopkins Hospital for treatment of leukemia in 1989, he and his wife, Eleanor, spent the first week in a hotel room. It was a comfortless place to face the prospect of grueling treatment and possible death.So they jumped at the chance to move to Hope Lodge, a haven for cancer patients and their families on West Lexington Street. For more than three months, while Mr. Bencak underwent a bone marrow transplant and extensive follow-up treatment, he and his wife lived with others who were dealing with the ravages of disease and the side-effects of chemotherapy and radiation.

Despite his lifetime ban by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, organizers of a Howard County race are welcoming Lance Armstrong to town with open arms. Organizers of the Ulman Cancer Fund for Young Adults announced the cyclist will race in their Half Full Triathlon on Oct. 7 alongside fellow cancer survivors in and around Centennial Park. "I couldn't be more excited to welcome Lance back to my hometown to support an event benefiting the organization I created with my family in college," Doug Ulman, the Fund founder and president and CEO of the Lance Armstrong Foundation said in a statement.

Married patients suffering from advanced lung cancer are likely to live longer after treatment than those who aren't hitched, according to research released today. The study by researchers at the University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Cancer Center in Baltimore found that 33 percent of married patients with the most common type of stage III lung cancer were still alive three years after treatment. Only 10 percent of single patients were alive three years after undergoing chemotherapy and radiation.