Scores gather in Auburn for day of unity, shared stories
AUBURN – There aren’t many ski resorts in Hawaii, but Lost Valley’s ski lodge took on an Aloha look Sunday as nearly 300 cancer survivors and their caregivers gathered for a day of celebration.
It was the ninth annual local observance of National Cancer Survivors Day sponsored by Central Maine Medical Center.
With music, colorful leis and a pig roast, young and old participants shared stories and renewed acquaintances.
Joni Rodgers, a nationally-recognized author and speaker, delighted the audience with a humor-laced account of her battle with cancer. Rodgers, who wrote “Bald in the Land of Big Hair,” sold and autographed copies of her book and donated sale proceeds to the CMMC Immediate Needs Fund for Cancer Patients.
“Cancer only comes when it’s attached to a life,” she said, emphasizing that making the most of life is paramount. She said her book “is not about cancer. It is a book about life.”
She started by belting out a honky-tonk tune like those she sang as openers for country-western stars of the ’60s and ’70s. She joked about the shaky first year of her marriage, now into 25 years, when her husband suggested they spend eight months in a California fire tower.
“But we don’t know anything about forestry,” she said.
“How difficult can it be to tell a tree that’s on fire from one that’s not?” her husband asked.
From there, they forged a relationship that gained strength, especially following her diagnosis with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 1994.
Her spirited delivery and insightful comments about living with and after cancer connected on a deep level with the audience, bringing tears of laughter and pain.
She joked about the contradictory effects of chemotherapy drugs, such as one that contributes to early menopause.
“They call it menopause,” she quipped, “because mad cow disease was already taken.”
She didn’t want to wear a wig when she lost her hair, so her husband shaved his head in symbolic support.
“We looked like two bowling pins waiting for a spare,” she said.
On the serious side, she described being a caregiver for a cancer patient “like bicycling through a snowstorm. It’s blinding and impossible, and the only way it doesn’t bury you is for you to keep going.” She said her husband, and most caregivers, never get the credit they deserve.
Although she voiced little support for exotic and unusual alternative programs of treatment, she said prayer is important.
“I could feel my mother’s prayers around me like a fortress,” she said. “It means more than you know.”
Sarah Lawson-Link, a longtime oncology nurse at CMMC, told the audience how nursing in the cancer department turned out to be the most rewarding work for her.
The event also included a tribute to Jeffrey Miller, M.D., a hematologist/oncologist who has been with the cancer program at CMMC for 12 years. He’s leaving the area and will assume a research/teaching position in California later this month.
Kerry Irish, CMMC oncology social worker and coordinator of the NCSD program, said, “Each year this has grown and we have had more attendance and excitement. We try to make it a blend of education and information with some good old fun.”
Special tables included a plant sale, a quilt raffle, T-shirts, displays of skin care products, wigs and books. Free chair massages, paraffin hand waxes, haircuts and manicures were donated by Cassiel’s Day Spa, Lewiston.
There also was a popular games and craft table for kids, as well as face painting.
In 700 communities across the United States and Canada, this 19th National Cancer Survivors Day has become the world’s largest cancer survivor event. There are 10 million cancer survivors in the United States alone.
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