Bus tour promotes cancer fight
By JANICE KIASKI, staff writer
POSTED: May 9, 2008
Article Photos
“Don’t take away our right to fight. We will win,” she scrawled on the shrink-wrapped vehicle parked near Historic Fort Steuben.
Next to her, Dan Wood of Steubenville, also a cancer survivor, made a message contribution as well, writing. “Beat the beast. Fight the fight,” before he added his name and hometown.
The two local residents constituted a small but sincere turnout of American Cancer Society advocates there in support of the nationwide bus tour sponsored by the ACS Cancer Action Network, the nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy partner of the ACS. The ACS CAN supports evidence-based policy and legislative solutions designed to eliminate cancer as a major health problem, according to its promotional material.
The bus began its 25,000-mile, 48-state tour on Sunday, leaving Cleveland and making Steubenville its 14th of 17 stops in Ohio. Today it arrives in Warren to be a presence at that community’s Relay for Life, the largest one in the Buckeye State.
The bus is making stops at hundreds of communities on its six-month journey that will end on Nov. 4, Election Day, all in an effort to bolster a grassroots movement to make cancer a top national priority. Its message is “If one person can battle cancer, a nation can rise up and defeat it.”
Barb Wilinski, ACS advocate, told the modest-sized, umbrella-toting audience that the bus tour “will highlight the crucial role elected officials play in supporting laws and policies that help people fight cancer. We are here today because we care about cancer, and we will be heard. Together, we can make cancer a higher national priority by educating our lawmakers, the public and the media about the importance of government’s role in improving access to quality health care for all Americans. We’re sending the Fight Back Express on a nationwide journey to urge everyone to make their voices heard and join us in the fight to defeat cancer.”
The bus serves as a mobile action center where visitors can sign ACS CAN petitions calling for access to quality health care for all Americans; e-mail members of Congress, asking them to support laws and policies that help people fight cancer; become a member of ACS CAN, with donations helping to pay fuel costs for the trip; or complete an electronic Picture A Cure form that includes a volunteer’s photo and cancer story.
Wilinski emphasized that access to care is not to be confused with free insurance. “There’s a misunderstanding. It is access to better care, and this is the time for us to do it in the next six months,” she said, noting many people are uninsured or underinsured.
Visitors also are encouraged to sign the bus in a show of support for making cancer a top national priority, which many did Thursday evening. Their messages joined a multitude of others signed during the bus’ other stops so far.
“It’s been pretty powerful and very moving and very inspiring,” said Korrine Moore of the national ACS office in Washington, D.C. Moore and Ana Mihajlovic, media advocacy coordinator for the Ohio ACS, have been traveling with the bus so far.
Moore said the bus likely will be shrink-wrapped “six or seven times” during the course of its journey to accommodate all the anticipated signatures which ultimately will become part of “a moving monument for years to come.”
“We have had great turnout and great media coverage. There’s been a lot of excitement surrounding the bus,” Mihajlovic said of the initial response to the Fight Back Express.
“We’ve met some really wonderful people who are making a huge difference in changing lives so it’s been a wonderful experience,” she added.
The evening where Mayor Domenick Mucci welcomed those attending also was the forum for three cancer survivors to share their stories. They included Groves, Wood and Tim McCoy, general manager and vice president of WTOV-TV.
Groves, who was diagnosed in March 2005 with ovarian cancer stage 3, commented how she witnessed “truly heart-wrenching and devastating things” during her year of chemotherapy.
“All around me people were fighting to live and to beat this dreaded disease. They were going through unbelievable things, trying to get tests OK’d from their insurance company.
“The doctors wanted them to have their tests done, and their insurance company was telling them flat out ‘no,’” Groves said, thinking at the time how grateful she was to have good insurance.
By March 2006, Groves was in remission, but by January 2008, a CAT scan showed something suspicious on her abdomen. A PET scan was recommended by her doctor but denied by her insurance carrier.
“I thought, no way. How can this be this possible? Surely they wouldn’t deny me a test that could help save my life,” Groves said, noting she appealed the decision, a process of convincing strangers that “my life is important enough to have this test done.”
Groves was told a decision would come in 20 days, then another 60 days. She said she got a letter denying her test again.
“This year the relay theme is fighting back. We have to fight back and give them all we’ve got. I am not giving up. We need these insurance companies to know we mean business, and we are going to stand up for ourselves. We need Congress to pass laws so nobody gets denied the medical treatment we all deserve,” Groves said to a round of applause.
McCoy, diagnosed last April with colon cancer, said in essence that “Steubenville, Ohio, saved my life” from a businesswoman’s observation that he didn’t look well to a local doctor who performed his colonoscopy to a Pittsburgh doctor and Steubenville native Dr. Dave Medich, who performed surgery to remove 15 percent of his colon and urged him to be part of a national clinical study involving people with stage 2 colon cancer.
McCoy said he’d been under the impression a colonoscopy was a procedure to be done once you turn 50.
“I am here to tell you 40 is the new 50,” McCoy said, noting his experience has resulted in him encouraging others to have the procedure done.
As it turned out, McCoy said the tumor likely existed five years. “It’s kind of interesting that I could have been in my late 30s when this all developed, so again, I am here to tell people the colonscopy is the greatest thing in the world.
“Chemotherapy is not fun but my personality is prepare for the worst and hope for the best and even though it wasn’t the worst, it wasn’t the best,. It was somewhere in the middle, and I had to keep a positive attitude,” McCoy said of his experience.
One thing greatly appreciated was the support of the community. “You don’t realize how many friends you have in this world until something like this happens,” McCoy said.
Wood was diagnosed with cancer in 2006 and faced a dismal prognosis. After five months of grueling treatment and many prayers, “I was cured.” Wood has spent much of his spare time working for a cure for cancer, he said, expressing his gratitude for all that Barb and Rich Wilinski have done through their ACS involvement.
He told the audience they all have a role in keeping the ball rolling as well as the bus rolling.
“We have to let our lawmakers know that there are a lot of us out here who want this disease defeated. We want more and better treatments for our current victims, and we want the United States of America to get behind us and budget us the money to keep research going,” Wood said.
“Please, tonight, make a commitment to all of us victims of cancer and future victims of cancer, to contact your state and federal lawmakers and be relentless,” Wood urged. “We need funding for the ACS and believe me if we all commit to this they will hear our voices and be sure you make them aware of our prayers and make them understand we are not going away until we have found a cure for cancer,” he added.
“Please make a donation to keep this bus moving. It’s a great vehicle to use to get the attention of all our lawmakers throughout the United States, and remember, every donation counts, no matter how big or how small.
“Many times Rich has said to me, pennies make dollars and dollars create research, and that is what it’s going to take to win this battle.”
(Kiaski can be contacted at jkiaski@heraldstaronline.com.)
