On pace for recovery The Walk for Life benefit helps cancer patients get back on their feet.

Byline: Mark Baker The Register-Guard

Suppose you had cancer. And you couldn't work. And you had bills to pay.

What would you do?

Well, if you're Cindy Braithwait of Eugene, you'd consider yourself very fortunate. Because it's 2005 and you're being treated for ovarian and endometrial cancer at the Willamette Valley Cancer Center. You're crying, and talking to a social worker at the center about "how sad my life was." You're wondering, how in the world is this all going to work out?

With help from a special emergency fund.

"It was just a relief," says Braithwait, 49, who moved to Eugene from Florida last year and hopes to soon resume a career in nursing. "It was just something that kept me hanging on."

The fund was established for women with cancer by the Soroptimist International Clubs of Eugene, Junction City and the Emerald

Empire, and raised through the annual Walk

for Life.

Gretchen Matsuoka, the social worker who met with Braithwait, is in charge of administering the fund and suggested that Braithwait check to see if she qualified. She did.

Held every year since 1993, the Walk for Life benefit raises about $20,000 a year and has raised and awarded more than $225,000 in its history to local women battling breast, ovarian and other reproductive cancers. Most of the recipients usually earn too much to be eligible for the Oregon Health Plan and are faced with choosing between their family's needs and treatment.

"I probably would have been homeless," says Braithwait, who attended Thursday's kick-off function at the cancer center for this year's walk, which begins at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Eugene Water & Electric Board building plaza. The fund, which does not provide assistance for treatment, helped her pay rent and make car payments.

"There are so many programs that have dried up," Matsuoka says, "so it's great to have something to turn to."

The funds are used for "anything that will help while they're getting treatment," she says. "And it all stays local."

Judy Hummel of Eugene was another cancer patient who knew nothing of the fund when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and then larynx cancer a month later, in 2002.

"They paid my mortgage for two months," says Hummel, 47. A single-parent and a full-time travel agent, she had to take time off from work for "voice rest" because of the larynx cancer. In addition to getting help with the mortgage, her grant helped pay her electric bill and her medical insurance premium, Hummel says.

"It made me feel extremely grateful, just full of love for them," she says of the Soroptimists and those who contribute to the fund. "It was just a really big blessing, just to know that some women out there had done that."

With the exception of skin cancer, breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer for women nationally and worldwide, according to the National Breast Cancer Coalition, a grassroots organization dedicated to ending breast cancer through action and advocacy. An estimated 3 million American women are living with breast cancer, a million of whom don't yet know they have it, and an expected 275,000 new cases will be diagnosed this year, according to the coalition.

Most cancer fundraisers go toward research, but when local Soroptimists started the Walk for Life, their own research told them it was relief from the financial strain that was most needed, says Nancy Colfer, a Eugene Soroptimist.

"So that's what we decided to focus on," she says.

And, sometimes, it's not just money that comes in during the annual fundraiser. Le Salon of Springfield is donating a blond wig made of real human hair in Europe and valued at $1,500 for some lucky recipient yet to be named.

"My mission is to get more people involved in the cause," says stylist Cynthia Missakian of the salon.

WALK FOR LIFE

What: Annual three-mile walk along the Willamette River to benefit women struggling with breast and reproductive-system cancer

When: 10 a.m. Saturday (registration begins at 9 a.m.); minimum donation to walk is $10; $50 donation gets you a commemorative "Stone Soup" T-shirt

Where: Eugene Water & Electric Board building plaza, 500 E. Fourth Ave.

Online: Register and get more information at www.soroptimist eugene.com.