MORENO VALLEY

By Chris Levister

When Rutha Eastland was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1996 her first thoughts were: commit suicide. In 1998, two weeks after a ‘clean' mammogram, 64-year-old Joanne Gilbert discovered a lump in her breast. When doctors found a cancerous mass the size of a dime in Betty Larkins' breast she recalls saying "Come on you're kidding."

Every three minutes a woman in the United States is diagnosed with breast cancer.

This year 40,970 women are expected to die, the majority of them African- American.

"I saw no point in crying," says Larkins, "my philosophy is if you're given lemons - make lemonade." Doctors successfully removed the cancerous lump, but for the retired Riverside school teacher making lemonade proved tougher than chasing a classroom full of first graders.

My husband of 37 years left me a month after my surgery. He drove me to a few radiation appointments, but he couldn't take the pressure. I couldn't give up. I had a life to live and a room full of screaming first graders to teacher.

Larkins endured 33 days of grueling cancer treatment during her lunch hour and after work. "I never missed a day of work. I was determined to beat the cancer."

"My doctor said, ‘your cancer is moving fast'," recalls 68-year-old Rutha Eastland now retired from the Riverside Probation Department.  Eastland was admitted to a hospital for a heart exam she left with a breast cancer diagnosis. "My life turned upside down. I was angry and depressed." Eastland recalls months of nausea, vomiting and unspeakable fear. I was ashamed to utter the ‘C' word. She remembers grasping the will to live from an unlikely source of inspiration - her then five-year-old granddaughter Chanecka.

"What I saw as hopeless, she was determined to make otherwise. She'd see me hugging the toilet bowl and say, ‘Gramie the ouchie is going to get better'." From doctor's visits to trips to the pharmacy Chanecka and Rutha became inseparable. "She insisted on helping me clean the breast fluid drains implanted during surgery. I was afraid to cry or show weakness, she watched me like a hawk. She sensed most of my family had been stricken with cancer. I'd lost my two brothers to cancer. I was the only remaining sibling. In the face of incredible odds Eastland recalls, "God sent me an angel. I couldn't let her down."

"I was changing my clothes when I felt a lump. I was shocked. I felt numb." For Joanne Gilbert that fateful discovery came two weeks after she received a letter stating that her annual breast exam (mammogram) was negative.

"The notice said come back for a recheck in two years. I turned to my husband. He felt the lump we looked at each other and said, ‘how could this be'. My life went down hill from there."

Gilbert discovered the lump in August, when doctors removed the mass a month later the cancer had advanced to near stage four. "It was spreading fast. When you have cancer it takes you to another level. You ask will I be disfigured? Will I live in fear of the next lump? You take stock of your life."

But, says Gilbert "I never felt alone. I sat down and wrote a letter to my family and friends. I said please pray for me." The result says Gilbert was a massive outpouring of compassion. "I honestly felt surrounded by a wall of prayer." Prayer the then Moreno Valley school teacher says helped her navigate nine months of chemotherapy and seven weeks of radiation. "I felt like a cripple climbing Mt. Everest. Some days I wanted to let go of the rope. But a voice in my head kept telling me I had to live for my family. I wanted to help other women avoid this terrible disease."

Now cancer free Gilbert, Eastland and Larkins are telling their stories as role models for the Southern California Witness Project (SCWP). At churches, schools, health fairs and free mammogram screenings their lifesaving message targets African-American and Latino women:  DON'T Wait! Don't procrastinate! "If you're a woman and you haven't had your annual physical exam, make that appointment now - it could save your life." 

"Examine your breast twice a month. Get a yearly mammogram and PAP exam." Gilbert   says while the mammogram is the best screening tool for breast cancer available today, it does not detect all breast cancers. It's important to have anything unusual checked by your doctor.

The Witness Project funded by a grant from The California Wellness Foundation is administered by the Moreno Valley-based Quinn Community Outreach Corporation (QCOC). "In church, we witness to save souls," said Eudora Mitchell, president of QCOC. "In the Witness Project, we witness to save lives."

SCWP builds on a national model developed at the University of Arkansas and implemented throughout the country in conjunction with the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) At SCWP's group sessions, Witness Role Models - women with cancer or cancer survivors who have received training in telling their stories - share their experiences with cancer.

The role models are paired with Lay Health Advisors who discuss facts and myths about cancer. They demonstrate breast exams and teach women how to take responsibility for their health, says Edith Nevins, program coordinator. Nevins says cultural, economic and linguistic barriers contribute to the ignorance and fear surrounding breast and cervical cancer seen among many African-American and Latina women. "It's both frustrating and heart breaking. By sharing their stories, teaching prevention and telling women cancer is not an automatic death sentence, these women become powerful role models."

The national Witness Project model was designed to serve African American women: however, recognizing that early detection rates among Latinas are also low, SCWP is piloting a new program model for that community - Esperanza Y Vida (Hope and Life).

"The ‘C' word doesn't have to be death sentence. Think ‘courage, commitment, compassion, check up," says Betty Larkins.

"Talk about your cancer - break down the barriers of ignorance and fear, you're never alone insists," Joanne Gilbert. "Each time we witness a part of the barrier falls."

"If sharing our story of faith, anger, determination and hope saves one life," says

Rutha Eastland, "the hell cancer put us through will have not been in vain."