Giving Back

“What did I want when I was newly diagnosed? Someone to call me and say 'I have what you have.'

Quilting means togetherness for support group members (l-r) Ellen Waring, Roseann Artim and Kay Mickley.

There was no such someone for Ellen Waring of Allentown when she learned she had advanced ovarian cancer in 1998. But today, she and her fellow members of the gynecologic cancer support group at Lehigh Valley Hospital are providing that service. The group was organized through the office of gynecologic oncologist Richard Boulay, M.D. They’re there for each other and by telephone for newly diagnosed women.

Each caller has her own style, and Waring’s is down-to-earth. “If you want sugar coating, you don’t want me!” she says. What she does offer is the positive philosophy she’s developed through a painful journey including surgery and chemotherapy.

“You don’t know how precious life is until you’re dealt a blow like this,” says Waring, now 41 and the single parent of a teen-aged daughter. “The cancer can come back; that’s always in the back of your mind. But you can’t change what’s happened, so how do you deal with it? You can choose to worry, isolate yourself and be consumed by the disease; or you can take the time you have and be happy, do the things you want to do.”

One of those things, for Waring, is learning how to sponge-paint her bathroom. Another is being there for cancer patients who need to talk. “I can tell them,” she says, “that life goes on!”

“I’ve learned some things about cancer, and I like feeling that I can help other people get through it.”

On her way to visit cancer patients, Margaret Walsh pauses for a smile.

Margaret Walsh knows more about cancer than most people. The 79-year-old Schnecksville woman lost her husband and sister to the disease in 1992 and is herself a colorectal cancer survivor. When she decided to become a volunteer at Lehigh Valley Hospital three years ago, it was natural that she chose to work with cancer patients.

“I spend time with anyone who’s lonely or wants a visit,” Walsh says. Her most important function is just being there to hold the patient’s hand and listen. “They need to talk about their problems,” she says. “I can sympathize because I know what they’re going through. When it helps, I share some of my own experiences.”

A phone operator for 23 years, Walsh knows how to put a smile in her voice as well as on her face. “I tell the patients they have to smile back at me before I go— that’s how they ‘pay’ me,” she says. Almost everyone does. “Cancer patients are better at laughing than I ever thought possible.”

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