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Cancer survivors gather to share personal stories
Kimberly Diamond, left, and her daughter, Michael Diamond, place some memorable photos in Kimberly’s scrapbook during National Cancer Survivors Day at the Edwards Comprehensive Cancer Center at Cabell Huntington Hospital on Sunday. Kimberly Diamond recently was diagnosed with cancer.
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HUNTINGTON -- Eight years ago, Victoria Baker thought she wouldn't make it.
So, the cancer patient and mother of three gathered up photos and memories and, in her own words, told her story in a scrapbook to pass on.
On Sunday, Baker shared that love of clipping art and counting blessings with a parking lot full of other cancer survivors as hundreds of folks gathered outside the Edwards Comprehensive Cancer Center at Cabell Huntington Hospital for a special luncheon and scrapbooking project.
Part of National Cancer Survivors Day, the event was just one of more than 700 held nationwide to celebrate life, health, friends and family -- and that special bond with those in the medical community.
HIMG and St. Mary's Medical Center hosted an event in the HIMG Community Room at 5170 U.S. 60 in Huntington on Sunday as well. That event included guest speaker Dr. Gary Patton, an oncology counselor at St. Mary's Regional Cancer Center, and various activities and health information.
A professional photographer was on site at HIMG to document the event for the cancer survivors and their families, free of charge, and refreshments were provided.
Baker, a Creative Memories consultant, said when Gigi Gerlach, the breast health educator at Cabell, asked her about helping out with their scrapbooking project, she jumped at the chance. The project was aimed at helping survivors share their photos and personal mementos on a scrapbook page collected in a book that will now be on display in the center's education room.
"The message all the way through is hope," Baker said as she flipped through the shared hardships and triumphs of patients as young as Joey May, who was 21 months old when he was diagnosed. "It's something for people to share in a real personal and powerful way."
While Huntington resident and well known school teacher T.C. Clemons was making a page, 71-year-old Milton resident Dale Black turned in a page that chronicled the cancer struggles he went through since 2000 and that of childhood friend Bennie Courts, who was diagnosed in 1984 and helped Black through his cancer treatments.
"We came last year, and we're here this year because God has blessed us so much we want people to know you can survive," Black said.
Lynn Jarrell, director of clinical services at Edwards Comprehensive Cancer Center, said Sunday's event lets people gather and feel that collective strength of other cancer survivors.
Nationwide, it is estimated there are more than 10.5 million cancer survivors, Jarrell said.
"That shows how far we have come with new treatments that are able to target the disease, and the new clinical trials, new protocols and new innovative procedures such as the DaVinci, that is so minimally invasive."
Jarrell, whose 36-year-old son Carter Jarrell is a cancer survivor, said the National Cancer Survivors Day is also a nice, fun day of bonding between health professionals and their patients.
"It's nice to see the staff, the doctors, all the people who do the treatments and to see those patients that we've known through their whole care," Jarrell said as hospital staff person Michelle Conley jumped up to sing with the Carl Toler Quartet. "That's a tremendous facet of it. It's a good-time celebration of life."
Gerlach, the breast health educator, said she wouldn't miss Survivors Day for anything.
"You make so many friends and they really do inspire you and they will say they appreciate you, and that gives you even more validation for doing something you love to do," Gerlach said. "I see so much faith in action. It is just unrelenting. They really help and support each other."
