Cancer Survivors

In a decision that promises breast-cancer victims more protection in the workplace, the New Jersey Appellate Division has ruled that mastectomy patients are amputees and therefore covered under the state's Law Against Discrimination. The ruling could aid other cancer survivors as well. Reversing a lower court's ruling, the three-judge appeals panel found that although a Monmouth County woman's cancer was in remission, she was protected under the antidiscrimination law. "The fact that she suffered no recurrence and that she had minimal limitations on her physical capabilities does not disqualify her from protection under the LAD," Judge Lorraine Parker wrote in the July 3 opinion.

Seven years ago, Marilyn Uchitel learned that the tumor in her knee was malignant. A few years later, there was a brush with breast cancer. But today Uchitel is doing fine. "You cry, then you go ahead and do what is recommended - the operation, the radiation. " Then, says Uchitel, "You re-evaluate your life and find out what's important. It isn't the car. It isn't the house. It's your child, your family. Then you think, 'What am I going to do with my life?' " For Uchitel, the answer was to begin volunteering at the Fox Chase Cancer Center.

Their friendship didn't get off to the easiest start. Phyllis Markoff was waiting in her oncologist's office for chemotherapy treatment when she noticed the scarf on the woman across from her, a woman also in her mid-30s named Emily Scattergood. Markoff asked where she bought it. "She just said, 'My sister got it for me.' I was wearing my wig and she didn't think I was a cancer patient so she was really put off," said Markoff, of Cherry Hill. "I was like, 'I'm going to the beach, and I don't want to go bald.

The American Cancer Society's statistics are grim - one in four people is likely to be diagnosed with cancer. But the good news that is more people are surviving cancer than ever before. Physicians today know more about how to fight the disease, and 4 1/2 million cancer survivors are proof that new treatments are working. But survivors can face prejudice in the workplace and discrimination by insurance companies, according to Susan Brown, a registered nurse and the administrative director of Crozer-Chester Medical Center's Regional Cancer Center.

The applause began when the three tanned bicyclists were spotted approaching the Institute for Cancer Research at the Fox Chase Cancer Center. It rose in a crescendo as Eric Rock, Nina Cooper and Ginni Fleck pedaled beneath a welcoming banner. As the trio dismounted, they were greeted with flowers, balloons, hugs and kisses from supporters who had kept track of their 4,600-mile journey across the United States to raise money and support for the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship.

Susan Dallas-Feeney says she is going to feel "uplifted" when she struts across the small runway at QVC Studios on Saturday. The three-year survivor of breast cancer said that participating in the annual SHINE fashion show gave her "a sense of hope and strength. " This is the fourth time the West Chester family physician will model clothes and makeup at the event. SHINE, which stands for Salons Helping in Neighborhoods Everywhere, is sponsoring the fund-raising event for the Cancer Center of Chester County, a service of the Chester County Hospital, and the University of Pennsylvania Cancer Center.

A 100-kilometer (62-mile) bicycle ride isn't the way couch potatoes would spend a summer day. However, for Bob Ehlinger and thousands of others, Sunday's American Cancer Society ride from the Benjamin Franklin Bridge to Mays Landing, N.J., is a labor of love. Like many others who will make the ride, Ehlinger, 40, is a cancer survivor. The Abington High graduate was a junior at Gettysburg College when he was diagnosed with testicular cancer. Following his successful treatment, Ehlinger was asked by the American Cancer Society to speak to high school students about early detection of the disease.

Don't be put off by the admittedly off-putting title. The appeal of My Left Breast, the one-woman show that opened Wednesday at the Walnut Street Theatre Studio 3, is not limited to breast cancer survivors. Susan Miller, the likable playwright/performer of the piece, is after all much more than that - in her own words, a "one-breasted, menopausal, Jewish, bisexual, lesbian mom. " That covers a lot of territory. The starting point of Miller's hour-long dramatic monologue is indeed her cancer and mastectomy experience.

As loud rock music blared and celebrities watched from the front rows, Nancy Pelton and a few friends grasped the hands of designer-clad models and matched them step-for-step on the Frankie B runway. The women, all survivors of HER2-positive breast cancer, seemed nervous at first. By the time they reached the end of the catwalk, however, they were smiling and twirling, showing off made-up faces, and unveiling Frankie B's "HER2 Genes," a special line of denim to benefit a cancer organization.

Cancer survivors and their family and friends held a 20-mile bike ride Saturday, raising $3,000 for the Fox Chase Cancer Center. Cheryl and Clyde Croasdale, at left, get off their shared mount after finishing, and Ed McBlain, above, drinks water on a break near the Delaware. One hundred bikers joined the ride.

NEW YORK - If you've ever fired up your computer and cringed in anticipation of what nasty e-mails await, pity Eve Ensler. The Tony Award-winning playwright and activist gets a daily record sent to her of atrocities against women - a never-ending drumbeat of rape, genital mutilation, imprisonment, and murder. "In my inbox on any given day, I can tell you every single story of any violation that's happening to women anywhere in the world," Ensler says. "It's horrifying. My inbox is like a nightmare.

Through Oct. 17, Philly.com and The Inquirer will mark breast cancer awareness month by publishing a profile a day of transformative moments reported by patients. The series will culminate in a special Philly.com/Inquirer/Daily News section on Oct. 18, and can be viewed at www.philly.com/breastcancer . Lisa Barsky is a school psychologist and teacher in Bala Cynwyd. This is her story: "The most difficult moments for me in my delicate dance (not battle) with breast cancer were also the ones that were most transformative.

To know Brenda Jones is to get hugged by her. What happens next, often, is you want to send her some fabric. She's the breast-cancer battler I wrote about three years ago whose anger at getting sick found a juicy target in those hideous, backless Johnny coats that hospitals make their patients wear. As she was recovering from radiation treatment, she learned to sew, well enough to start producing fanciful flannel gowns she calls Hug Wraps. She'd given away about 150 of them to fellow cancer patients when I first visited her home in Southampton, N.J., on the edge of the Pine Barrens.

Dubbed a "medical anomaly" by his doctors, 21-year-old Alexander Rotzal has fought the odds of survival from the moment he was born. His severely underdeveloped heart, an often fatal birth defect, has had him in and out of hospitals for his entire life. At age 2, Alex had a life-prolonging heart operation. Every few years, to keep his heart functioning normally, he still needed an extra metal part here and there, including a pacemaker. This summer, while other college students worked on their tans or vacationed abroad, Alex battled cancer and beat it back.

Richie Suarez and his family would say that all in all, they have a lot to be thankful for. In late August 2010, Richie was 18 and in the best shape of his life. He was two days away from moving from Voorhees to Rowan University, where he would study math or science and play his beloved baseball. Then he was thrown the worst curve imaginable: He was diagnosed with a pediatric form of leukemia. Nearly 14 months of intensive chemotherapy followed to beat the disease into remission.

Richie Suarez and his family would say that all in all, they have a lot to be thankful for. In late August 2010, Richie was 18 and in the best shape of his life. He was two days away from moving from Voorhees to Rowan University, where he would study math or science and play his beloved baseball. Then he was thrown the worst curve imaginable: He was diagnosed with a pediatric form of leukemia. Nearly 14 months of intensive chemotherapy followed to beat the disease into remission.

Hello there On a March morning in 2010, Monica unenthusiastically appeared at the Delaware County Courthouse, prepared to serve as a juror, if she had to. When she moved to a courtroom for jury selection, she noticed a familiar-looking sheriff's deputy. Could that be Vince, her high school sweetheart? All of a sudden, she was hoping to be chosen, just to satisfy her curiosity. Monica and Vince had been an item in 1997, when she was a junior and he a sophomore at Upper Darby High.

For more than two decades, monochromatic emblems have been all the rage in cancer survival and advocacy. From pink to gold and purple to gray, we have displayed our commitment to raise awareness of specific cancers and end one or another form of the dreaded disease. But some have begun to question the tunnel vision we sometimes bring to what should be a collective conversation about a continuum of diseases that killed more than half a million Americans last year alone. I shared this concern with many of my fellow participants in the Scientist-Survivor Program at the American Association for Cancer Research's annual meeting this month.

  Eleven months ago, fresh from a heart transplant, Derek Fitzgerald of Harleysville could barely walk. On Sunday, new ticker working perfectly, he completed 13.1 miles, one of the 25,000 people who took part in the annual Philadelphia Marathon weekend, which also includes a half-marathon and an 8K race. Fitzgerald, 38, was diagnosed eight years ago with cancer: non-Hodgkin's disease. Chemotherapy worked - but it damaged his heart. "It felt like having a 10-pound weight on your chest," Fitzgerald said of his disease.

The timing may have been a coincidence, but the announcement during National Breast Cancer Awareness Month that a Jenkintown lingerie shop would stop selling specially made bras and prostheses to survivors of the second-most-common cancer among women in the United States seemed an unfortunate juxtaposition. Tulips Lingerie & Intimate Apparel will no longer carry the products. The shop fell victim to what owner Fran Dratch calls a complex and expensive accreditation process that she says amounts to a smackdown of such small boutiques.