Relay for Life: Helping raise awareness, spirits

Kevin McConnell will never forget where he was when the terrifying news struck.

"I was a mile outside Wheatland driving my dump truck home when the doctor called," he said. "I was 43. I thought, 'There is no way I have cancer.' Turns out I did, and at that point you just have to suck it up and fight it."

His diagnosis was a fluke of luck, the result of a random test his wife pushed the doctor to give him. If McConnell had waited until the recommended testing age of 50, the disease may have been more advanced, possibly fatal.

Four years later, the Olivehurst resident is one of the youngest prostate cancer survivors he knows. He uses his story to encourage other men — some as young as 35 — to get tested — and more than 200 have followed through.

"I've just dumped myself into this," McConnell said.

He aims to raise awareness by any means possible, so he joined hundreds of other survivors and advocates Saturday at the 14th annual Yuba City Relay for Life. With towering banners to "Celebrate," "Remember" and "Fight Back," they strolled lap by lap around Geweke Field, the soles of their shoes setting a steady rhythm on the rubber track.

"It's about cancer research, but so much more important to me is bringing all these people to one place to celebrate," McConnell said.

Walkers passed the E-Lemon-Ate Cancer lemonade stand, boxing gloves to "Knock out Cancer" and dangling bras at the "Cure or Bust" booth. A few women paused to stick their faces inside a wooden cutout of a bodacious blonde with enormous breasts as others made lipstick imprints for "Kisses for a Cure."

"I know it sounds stupid, but it's not just a walk," said Marysville resident Mistie Van Dine. "It's a celebration of life and triumph and hope."

Saturday marked Van Dine's third anniversary after her fight with lymphoma. Like McConnell, she also remembers her diagnosis.

"There is disbelief, paralysis, fear and complete shock," said Van Dine, 39. "You just can't get over the word 'cancer.'"

It was just as terrifying for her mother, Arizona resident Amy Van Rossen, who underwent a hysterectomy and treatment for uterine cancer when she was 26 years old.

"I went to my knees. I was devastated, the idea that she was so young and so sick and I was so far away" she said.

But her faith has been renewed, she said, in watching her daughter's familial support, her great treatment and the power of events like Relay for Life. She walked around the track holding hands with her granddaughter, Taylor Van Dine, who was her mother's caregiver while her father was deployed to Korea and Iraq.

"When it happened to me, there wasn't this big push," Van Rossen said. "Everyone got this heinous look on their face like, 'You are going to die tomorrow.' I wish that I had this ... I see the support now and it makes my heart swell."

A tall Scott Helms pushed his petite 89-year-old grandmother, Peggy Stier, around in her wheelchair, flanked by a dozen of his friends from the Feather River Men's Center.

After losing his grandfather to colon cancer in March, when Mario Molina heard his friend Helms was looking for people to join his grandmother's Relay for Life team, he volunteered immediately.

"I'm just inspired to support life," Molina said. "A lot of people don't have anyone out there and are facing this alone."

Helms, his grandmother and mother, Barbara Ferrari, represent three generations of survivors, but Ferrari has lost 15 friends to various forms of cancer in the last year.

"It's a horrible disease," she said. "We've come a long way with research but it takes a family. Everyone here are my brothers and sisters."

Support is critical, said Yuba City resident Sharon Swartz. After all, it was a friend and her husband who pushed her to the second mammogram she put off after the first one revealed an abnormality.

"I think most people are afraid to know the answer," she said. "They think what I don't know won't hurt me."

After her diagnosis, she spent time researching her rare form of breast cancer and settled on surgery and medication. Swartz, 58, celebrated her fifth anniversary Saturday but said she has a difficult time comparing herself to those who sustained radiation, double mastectomies and the loss of hair to chemotherapy.

"Every day is a blessing, a gift that most people take for granted," she said. "Be thankful for every day you have."

Olivehurst resident Patricia Robinson also doesn't see herself as a survivor, although she did wear the purple shirt Saturday. She had had a mole on the bottom of her foot that gradually developed a bruise-like appearance five years ago. It was melanoma.

Like McConnell, she now an advocate for early detection, because even though her disease was not severe, it was still cancer and had the potential to grow.

"Who ever looks on the bottom of their foot?" said Robinson, 40. "I have two kids and now I'm always saying, 'Let me look at your moles.'"

CONTACT reporter Ashley Gebb at 749-4783.