In the library beside a tall atrium, Marina Posvar traffics in the mortal miracle of understanding.
She calls patients -- sometimes 35 a day -- before they walk through the Hillman Cancer Center's front door, just steps from her library. She gives them directions and phone numbers, offers definitions of frightening and unfamiliar words they might encounter and, when necessary, tells them she knows personally some of what they are experiencing.
Just as important, Posvar, 54, of Point Breeze introduces them to the support network built over decades for cancer survivors. That network will be on display Saturday at the Green Tree Radisson, during the American Cancer Society's 21st annual Cancer Survivor's Conference. Posvar, twice diagnosed with breast cancer, helped to plan the conference.
More than 14,600 cancer survivors live in Allegheny and surrounding counties, half of them in Allegheny County. They become survivors the moment they're diagnosed, said Elizabeth Pagel-Hogan, cancer control community specialist with the American Cancer Society's Western Pennsylvania division.
The term is less an exercise in positive thinking than a reflection of what it is to live with cancer. There is hope and fulfillment, and maybe remission, but no cure. A diagnosis doesn't change everything, Posvar said, but it changes enough to divide one's life into "before" and "after."
"If someone said you were dying, what would your reaction be?" asked Barbara Scott, 59, of McKees Rocks. Doctors diagnosed her with lung cancer 3 1/2 years ago and told her she had fewer than three years to live. Today, she keeps a lightness in her voice.
"You live with it, and you know that everything isn't the way it was."
There are heart-stopping conversations, such as when Scott called her husband at work to relay the doctors' verdict. After a pause, he said, "I'm coming home."
There are moments, too, that will live happily as long as their witnesses.
Scott lost her hair to chemotherapy shortly before her younger daughter's wedding. Both daughters drove from Ontario, the older one toting fake eyelashes. They sat together, "and they fixed me up. We put on the eyelashes. (The older one) says, 'Now don't touch them.' Well, I got up the next day, and I think I had half an eyelash."
And there is help.
Denise Ohr, 59, of Greensburg sought help in December 2002, after her breast cancer diagnosis. These days, she gives help. A volunteer counselor and soon-to-be trainer with the American Cancer Society, Ohr manages a team of survivors who answer anonymous calls from those just diagnosed.
"That's kind of my payback to God," Ohr said. "The percentage chance of my being here is not great. You wait for the other shoe to drop, and then you start thinking, 'Maybe it won't.' "
By the time doctors discovered her cancer, it had developed in both breasts and spread to her liver. She underwent a double mastectomy, and then chemotherapy and radiation treatment. A drug, then in its test phase, sent her liver cancer into remission 4 1/2 years ago. Ohr, who has two adult daughters, remained self-employed throughout the process.
"I'm a miracle," Ohr said. She never will be able to stop her treatments, every three weeks, of the drug Herceptin. Her chest bears a permanent port through which the drug is administered. She no longer can work out at the gym, because the drug increases her risk of heart failure.
So she lives, along with Posvar and others, immersed in a network of people like them -- helping those who wish to be like them.
"It's hard not to care," Posvar said.
The days can be difficult. Painful moments linger in memories and reminders bring them forth. They build relationships they know might be temporary. They make friends, lose some of them, and then make another phone call.
"There's a heck of a lot of hope out there," Ohr said.
Hers is to attend her younger daughter's wedding in August.
Larger text
Smaller text
Print
E-mail
