Diane Dunton Bruni

Honorary Survivor Chairwoman for the 2010 Relay For Life of Androscoggin County

Diane sums it up in one sentence: “I hate cancer.” 

“Cancer has taken so many close to me… friends, my mother, in-laws, my sister and my husband.” 

In 1996, Diane participated in her first Relay For Life, eight months after her mother, Lila, passed away after being diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. She continued to participate every year even when her husband, Bob, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2002. He passed away the same year.  Diane is one of three (out of six) siblings who have had cancer.  Her sister, Becky Clough, chaired Relay of Androscoggin in 2003, and passed away later in that same year after living with breast cancer for seven years.

Diane attributes her ability to cope with her husband’s cancer and final days to her sister, Becky, a hospice nurse, who unselfishly helped her care for him. Unknowingly, Becky was teaching Diane how to care for her during Becky’s last weeks of life a year later.

Shortly after her husband’s death, Diane started painting.  She’d always been a photographer and told her husband before he died that she wanted to paint what she photographed some day.  She had never painted before, but walked into an art studio and picked up a brush and started. “Painting was extremely healing,” she shared.

After Becky passed away, another sister was diagnosed with cancer and then Diane was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007. She did not waste time questioning, “Why me?” but moved to action and faced the disease head on.

 Diane looks forward to Relay every year, but is never quite sure what the impact emotionally will be.  “In years past, the faces of survivors and care givers reminded me that cancer affects so many – those faces tell a story of triumph.”  Hope is a focus of Relay.  Diane recalls the first year she attended a Relay event, “I was overcome with emotion when I saw the word HOPE written on the side of a hill.  During the luminary ceremony, HOPE became CURE, and I was hooked.”

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