RUMFORD – A local woman who knows first-hand the devastating impact cancer can have on a family will be among those speaking Tuesday morning when the American Cancer Society’s Fight Back Express bus tour brings its message to Maine. The bus will make its first Maine stop in Rumford before heading to Bangor, Augusta and Hallowell.

Diane Mitchell said 26 members of her family have died from cancer and four are cancer survivors or in the process of battling the disease.

The bus stop Tuesday is designed to draw attention to access-of-care issues that face many cancer patients in rural Maine.

“We have a wonderful hospital and a wonderful oncology department but we don’t have the radiation treatments and many people have to travel to Lewiston or farther for treatments,” Mitchell said.

One local family had to send their daughter to Indiana for a specialized proton-beam therapy that saved her life. “You shouldn’t have to go that far or be away from your family that long,” Mitchell said. The bus tour is a part of the society’s Cancer Action Network and its effort to highlight the role of elected officials in the fight against cancer, Mitchell said.

The bus is “kind of a rolling petition” collecting signatures from around the nation urging state and federal lawmakers to do more in the fight against cancer, Mitchell said.

“Access to care and affordable care are the big issues,” Mitchell said.

A breakfast Tuesday is sponsored by the local Relay for Life committee members and team captains who will individually foot the cost of the breakfast, which serves as fundraiser for the bus tour.

Proceeds from the $6-a-person breakfast will go toward the cost of moving the bus to its next stop in Maine.

The main message of the tour is, “If one person can battle cancer, a nation can rise up and defeat it,” a release issued by the society Monday stated.

The Fight Back Express kicked off in Ohio in early May and will travel across the 48 continental states through Election Day, Nov. 4. More about the Fight Back Express is available at www.acscan.org.