Making Strides AGAINST BREAST CANCER

BY elizabeth c. regan

Framingham's Warren Creamer started "Colleen's Dream Team" in honor of his mom Colleen, battling breast cancer. The first year of the team, she couldn't participate in the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk. The two are pictured here with Candy O'Terry from Magic 106.7 FM at last year's walk, in which Colleen was the Making Strides Survivor Speaker. Five years after being diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 47, Janine Nichipor of Devens is making strides toward a better understanding of what it means to be a cancer survivor, a mother, a daughter, and a friend.

Recently, her oldest child, Alexandra, 18, who was 13 years old at the time of Nichipor's diagnosis, reminded her of the tougher aspects of the journey.

Nichipor recounts her daughter's difficult truth with the pride and hard-won understanding of a mother: "She told me, 'you know, mom, it was so hard for me that I was just getting my breasts, and yours were killing you."

On Sunday, October 14, a projected crowd of 40,000 participants, including Nichipor's team, will put one foot in front of the other as part of the 15th Annual American Cancer Society Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk in Boston. Making Strides is the Society's premier event to raise awareness and funds to fight breast cancer. With over a 100 events nationwide, Boston claims pioneer status as the country's oldest and largest Making Strides walk.

Participants - made up of survivors, family members, friends, co-workers and every stripe of those who have been touched by breast cancer - choose from a three mile or 5.7 mile walk around the Charles River that starts out at the Hatch Memorial Shell. The mood is energetic. As thousands of walkers head out and thousands more come back, the constant stream of people rallying against breast cancer inspires an overwhelming sense of hope and progress.

For Colleen Creamer of Framingham, this will be the third year that a team has walked in her honor.

Because she was unable to participate in her team's first walk, which was held during the final days of a chemotherapy treatment filled with incapacitating side effects, she is that much more grateful for the steps taken each subsequent year.

In fact, she credits the Society with funding some of the research advances that have already, in the three years since her diagnosis, made for more effective chemotherapy treatments that are less debilitating on the body.

Creamer walks alongside her 11-year-old son, Warren, who has taken on the role of an American Cancer Society "pacesetter." Warren consistently raises more than $2,000 through the Making Strides walk.

Her strength, sense of humor, and delight in her son is evident.

"He likes to go to the pacesetter events," she says. "Last year they had a pacesetter fundraising brainstorming session, where my 10 year old was sitting at the table, throwing out ideas. It just cracks me up."

According to Warren, who articulates his stance each year on the Colleen Dream Team Web site, he walks because he doesn't want anyone else to have to go through what his mom went through - or what he went through.

"[It] might not have been as much as my mom, but it felt like a lot at the time," he wrote on the Web site for last year's team.

In 2006, Colleen was the Making Strides Survivor Speaker, standing in front of tens of thousands on the Hatch Memorial Shell as part of the festivities on the day of the walk. Wearing her pink survivor sash, with Warren next to her, Colleen took it all in, well, stride.

Laurie Collins, a friend of Colleen's whose idea it was to create Colleen's Dream Team in 2005, is consistently overwhelmed by the emotional component of each Making Strides walk.

"The first walk in Colleen's honor was a very bittersweet day," Collins says. "[We were] happy to be doing something for her, but sad because the outcome was unknown at the time."

That year, Collins remembered Warren assuring the team that his mother would walk with them next year. And she did.

"Walking the second year, and seeing Colleen walking with us, wearing her SURVIVOR pink sash, was empowering," Collins says.

Walking To Save Lives

Janine Nichipor was told by more than one doctor not to worry about the strong family history of breast cancer she knew to have affected each generation, since her paternal grandmother passed away at the age of 39. These doctors were operating under the assumption that breast cancer genes could not be passed down from the father's side of the family.

"That turned out to be false," Nichipor said.

Janine, the mother of an 18-year-old daughter and an 11-year-old son, now says she participates in the Making Strides walk not only to "address the sorrow of the generations," but to lessen the sorrow of the next generations.

Last year, she created a team in memory of her sister, who had just died of breast cancer at the age of 53. This year, her team will be called "In Honor of Helen Anna Stevens" after her paternal grandmother.

In Janine's grandmother's day, the words "cancer" and "breast" were not uttered out loud. At the Making Strides walk, those words are overheard everywhere. They are printed on banners. They are handscrawled on cardboard signs. "To go [to the Making Strides walk now] and see these big banners - it was just such a relief," she says. "To feel like we're not the only family, and I'm not the only woman, who's done this."

Janine is a staunch advocate for the Society for many reasons, not the least of which is the crucial role it plays in funding breast cancer research, including studies of the BRCA1 (BReast CAncer 1) and BRACA2 (BReast CAncer 2) genes in which inherited alterations contribute to many cases of hereditary breast cancer. But the ACS is also instrumental in a host of breast cancer education efforts, advocacy efforts, and patient support programs. Education, Advocacy, & Patient Support

Lisa Soulier of Lexington, the mother of 8- and 6-year-old daughters, contacted the American Cancer Society's toll-free hot line (1-800-ACS-2345) after her first mammogram at the age of 40 revealed she had breast cancer. She was desperate to get her hands on any information she could.

"What do you have that I can read, do, go to, anything?" she asked the person on the other end of the line.

It was then that the Society hooked her up with its own Reach to Recovery program. Reach to Recovery pairs specially trained volunteers - all breast cancer survivors - with patients and family members looking for an opportunity to discuss fears and concerns and to ask questions of someone who has been there and done that.

Patients are matched specifically - "really specifically, down to the bra size," Soulier laughs - to Reach to Recovery volunteers who have been in similar situations.

Soulier spoke with a woman who had children around the same age as her own, and then to another who went through one of the same surgeries. There is no limit to the number of support people with which each patient may be connected.

"That was really pivotal because through each of my five surgeries, before and after, my situation changed and each time I had a different decision to make," Soulier says. "And to make that decision I relied a lot on the [Reach to Recovery volunteers] and what they had to say."

Soulier could not walk in last year's Making Strides event after five surgeries made it difficult for her to get around. But because she had already benefited so much from what the Society had to offer, she knew she had to do something to give back.

Sitting at the registration table as a volunteer, she was amazed by the wide variety of people, from so many different backgrounds, who had come out to beat breast cancer.

A group of fraternity brothers walked in support of a brother whose mother had breast cancer. There were grandparents walking in honor of grandchildren.

"They really put me in the position to say 'what can I do?" Soulier says.

The roster of teams for the upcoming Making Strides walk includes "Team Sweet Pea," a name coined by Soulier's husband that was inspired by his affectionate nickname for her.

"This year I decided to form my own team because I CAN walk now," she says. With a huge group of family and friends already pledging their support, Soulier looks forward to that crisp, New England morning in mid-October as her own chance to make strides against breast cancer. To find out more about Boston's Making Strides Against Breast Cancer event, visit http://www.cancer.org/stridesonline .

Elizabeth C. Regan is a former Massachusetts-based freelance writer, who now makes her home in Connecticut.

How You Can Help

1. Donate to the American Cancer Society. Mailing address is: Making Strides Against Breast Cancer, 9 Riverside Road,Weston,02493-2281

2. Support a walker or team of walkers.

3. Walk yourself on Sunday, Oct 14. Rolling registration starts at 8 a.m. and continues until 10 at the Hatch memorial Shell at the Charles River Esplanade in Boston. There are two routes a 5.7 mile of a 3 mile For more information, visit http://makingstrides.acsevents.org/site/TR?pg=entry&frid=3496

Facts About Breast Cancer

Breast Cancer

is the most common cancer among women, except for non melanoma skin cancers

The chance of developing

invasive breast cancer at some time in a women's life is 1 in 8 or 13 % of women

It is estimated that in 2007

about 178,480 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed among women in America

SOURCE: American Cancer Society

Preventing Steps

Yearly mammograms

are recommended starting at age 40.

A clinical breast exam

should be part of a periodic health exam, about every three years for women in their 20s and 30s and every year for women age 40 and older.

Women should know

how their breasts normally look and feel and report any breast change promptly to their health care providers. Breast self-exam is an option for women starting in their 20s.

The American Cancer Society

recommends that some women - because of family history, a genetic tendency, or certain other factors - be screened with MRI in addition to mammograms. Women should talk with their doctor about their history and whether they should have an MRI. They may also call the American Cancer Society for more information about screening.

Source: American Cancer Society at www.cancer.org or 1-800-ACS-2345.

5 Things to Love About Making Strides Walk in Boston

1. It is the oldest and largest Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk in the nation

2. Since 1993, more than 340,000 Massachusetts walkers have raised $33.2 million

3. In 2006, 88 cents of every dollar raised in Boston directly supported the American Cancer Society's fight against breast cancer. Net funds are devoted to research (40 percent), early detection (45 percent), and patient support (15 percent).

4. More than 50,000 breast cancer survivors are estimated to have walked in Boston.

5. The goal of this year's walk is to raise $3 million.