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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Write what you know , the saying goes. So Norma E. Roth wrote her first book about what she knows all too well: breast cancer. When the Brooklyn native and longtime Cherry Hill resident was diagnosed in 2004, she became the ninth woman in three generations on the maternal side of her family to develop the disease. Pink Ribbon Journey tells their stories and more. Roth's decision to write was sparked by shock at learning that an old friend, Rowan University speech professor Carolyn O'Donnell, had died of breast cancer that same year.

For breast cancer survivors like Marie McCrone, the worry never quite stops. Despite a lumpectomy and lymph node removal in 2002, she feared recurrence of the cancer or the onset of lymphedema, a painful swelling of the arm that can occur long after surgery. "I heard all sorts of horror stories about it," recalls McCrone, 52, of Warrington, Bucks County. "How you might get it just from lifting a grocery bag. " Four years later, she heard about a weightlifting program for breast cancer survivors being tested at the University of Pennsylvania..

With his remaining eye, Tyler Sanzone could see everything just fine: Cheerios, toys, bunnies in his backyard in Old Bridge, N.J., people who made him smile. Almost everyone, including white-coated doctors, got a smile from the 11-month-old. So at a doctor's visit last week, his parents, Emily and Mike, and his grandmother, Diana Gabardi, were happy. Tyler was free of retinoblastoma, the rare eye cancer that had cost him his right eye. And he was about to get an "ocular prosthesis" - an artificial eye. To be sure, it wasn't quite the outcome that they and Tyler's doctors at Wills Eye Institute had hoped for. In March, when the classic sign of retinoblastoma, cloudiness in the eye, led to his diagnosis, they hoped cutting-edge treatment would salvage the globe, possibly even with some vision.

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. - Earlier this week, Mark Herzlich walked off the Giants practice field drenched with sweat and fallen rain, wearing the dark blue synonymous with New York's oldest football team. A few minutes later, the Conestoga High graduate pulled off his No. 58 jersey - he wears the number formerly worn by Giants defensive captain Antonio Pierce - and pulled on a light-colored T-shirt with a neon slogan across the chest. Find Your Strong . Those three words, printed in bright yellow, popped off the shirt's blue-green background; an inch above Herzlich's heart seemed like an appropriate place for an inspiring message.

Food, glorious food Nearly 1,200 foodies attended the sixth annual Great Chefs Event on June 14 at Urban Outfitters' headquarters at the Navy Yard, raising nearly $1 million to benefit Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation for Childhood Cancer. The food fete, hosted by Vetri Foundation for Children cofounders Marc Vetri, Jeff Benjamin, and Jeff Michaud, featured small plates prepared by 40 chefs from Philadelphia and around the country. Among the live-auction items were dinner for eight at Vetri with Iron Chefs Bobby Flay and Michael Symon that went for $30,000; dinner for 20 at JG Domestic prepared by Jose Garces ($20,000)

IT WASN'T that many years ago when those yellow rubber wristbands were everywhere. They were the celebration of a sporting event people did not care about and, at the same time, the celebration of a story they grew to love. But now, one part of the story might be fiction - that is, if some of Lance Armstrong's former teammates are to be believed. And what if it is? What happens then? What happens to the greatest work of the man's life? The spokesperson answered quickly: "We appreciate you reaching out to us. It's business as usual at Livestrong, where we are focused on our mission to serve people affected by cancer and empower them to take action against the world's leading cause of death.

In his new book, The Social Animal , David Brooks makes a strong case for connection, community, and group participation. According to one study he cites, joining a group that meets even just once a month produces the same happiness gain as doubling your income. That assertion came to mind the other night as I listened to Tobi Goldberg Maguire give an impromptu thank-you speech to the women on her dragon boat team. It was 10 years to the day since her mastectomy, Maguire announced.