By By JESSICA SIEFF / Niles Daily Star
NILES – Every year an army is assembled on the track at Niles High School. It is an army of unparalleled force and unending dedication and its soldiers … a formation of fierce fighters on a formidable front.
The Niles-Buchanan Relay for Life will take place Saturday, July 26 and Sunday July 27. The American Cancer Society's "signature event" is a 24-hour relay to raise money in the fight against cancer.
Cheryl Culp of Niles was 34 years old when she found a lump the size of a silver dollar during self-examination. "I went right to the doctor," she said. "That is the key thing."
Now, 16 years later, Culp's once tired eyes are unwavering as she tells her story. Two weeks after she was diagnosed with first stage breast cancer, she'd undergone a mastectomy and started chemotherapy – she would endure six treatments.
Culp describes herself as one of the "lucky ones." "They took 19 lymph nodes," she said. "And every one was clean."
In two weeks, Culp's life seemed to have changed forever. She describes it as "scary." But one gets the idea that the term doesn't begin to capture the reality of the experience.
"The hardest thing I had to do was tell my kids," she said. Afterwards, "my husband came in and said to me, 'we can do this together'. If you don't have that … You have nothing.
"I decided that I wasn't going to go home and die. I was going to fight it."
What Culp wanted, was to see her son and daughter graduate. To be a grandparent. And now, "I've accomplished all of that," Culp said.
"You get a whole new perspective on life," she added. She told her family that things would have to be taken day by day. Chemotherapy took its toll. While it can cause immeasurable pain for some, Culp said hers was relatively, physically painless. She experienced nausea and a general feeling of seasickness, as she describes it.
Her taste buds changed and she was fatigued and lightheaded. But where the physical ends – the emotional begins. Culp lost her hair through chemotherapy, the hair she loved, that went all the way down her back. "I didn't know how people would react," she said. She cried, "but then I decided, I'm going to wake up every day."
She is just one of the many who define the word 'survivor.' The night of Culp's mastectomy, she attended her son's baseball game. And she continued to work in between her treatments. It comes down to acceptance, she said. Something that many have a hard time doing. And she finds that unfortunate. Because as she would seem to believe, acceptance seems to lead to the freedom to fight.
Five years after her mastectomy, Culp underwent reconstruction. All these years later, she can still remember what it felt like, the IV's inserted under the skin on the top of her hands. Her kidneys are weakened, a result of receiving some of the strongest chemo one can get, she said. And as if getting breast cancer at 34 wasn't enough – menopause hit at 37. "The hot flashes aren't fun," she says with a laugh.
Still, each year, Culp joins this distinguished army of survivors for the Relay for Life. This is her eighth Relay. Teams large and small work hard to raise money in anticipation of their local Relay for Life event. At least one member of each team must be on the track at all times. And while it is an event that raises an impressive amount of money – it is also an event that heightens a sense of community.
When she started, Culp had a team of three. At the time of this interview, her team has grown to 23. Where she previously raised $3900 last year – she is holding a goal of $10,000 for this year's event. Her team has received donations from Whirlpool of five prizes which include a stainless steel refrigerator, Energystar dishwasher and stainless steel garage works cabinetry. The prizes are part of a raffle her team devised to raise their money. Tickets are $20 and only 400 will be sold. "If we sell all 400," she said. "That will be $8,000."
Tickets are available at the Shoppe, 227 E. Main St., Niles and at the Backdoor Cafe in Buchanan.
The three core actions of the relay are for participants to "celebrate" the lives of those who have battled the disease and survive despite it, "remember" the lives of those whose battle may have been lost and come together to "fight back" – in an endless fight for a cure.
A survivor's lap starts the ceremony and Culp said that while the walkers are completely silent, what can be heard is the applause from the audience. And when she walks, she does so – like many – as not only a survivor but one who survives. Culp lost a friend to terminal bone cancer while she was recovering. And she lost a cousin to breast cancer. "For the first year," she said. "It was real tough for me. I still feel guilty sometimes. But the Lord works in mysterious ways."
She still gets nervous when she walks through the door at the doctor's office. But her focus for now is on Relay for Life. "Charities saved me," Culp said. When all was said and done she was facing $27,000 in medical bills. She was only able to make two small payments. After those payments, she said her bill was paid for by charities like Relay for Life and the ACA.
So she walks. Every year. In the fight against a disease that took a swing at her and suffered a defeat. For now. The fight goes on, every day. And the survivors – well – they hold the line, for those who've been lost, those who continue to fight and the friends and families who support them.
"There's not a day that goes by that I don't say 'I love you' to my kids," she said. "You have to have hope, faith and a sense of humor."
According to the American Cancer Society (ACA), "funds raised at Relay save lives by funding cutting-edge cancer research, early detection and prevention education, advocacy efforts and life-affirming patient services."
According to research by the ACA, 182,460 new cases of breast cancer are estimated for 2008. That is 26 percent of cancer sites in females including the lungs, colon and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. It actually ranks first on the list. And it comes in second for estimated deaths, at 15 percent – more than 40,000 are projected to lose their fight with the disease.
Information on the ACA website describes cancer, as developing in a certain part of the body where cells begin to grow out of control. Those cells can travel through the bloodstream -through the lymph system and to other parts of the body.