In the Pink

In the Pink

Carol Baribeau reaches out to celebrate 15th anniversary of Rays of Hope

By Debbie Gardner
PRIME Editor

Carol Baribeau and I had never met, never even spoken on the telephone. As busy women are apt to do, we'd communicated by email. The arrangements for us to meet and chat were made online.
Sitting at a table outside the East Longmeadow Panerra Bread, I carefully positioned the background materials I'd printed out on Rays of Hope so that the walk's distinctive logo was visible. I added a copy of the September issue of PRIME, folded so the masthead would show.
I figured that way she would be able to identify me.
At the appointed time a statuesque woman with close-cropped blonde hair crossed the parking lot and walked directly up to me.
"Debbie?" she asked. "Hi, I'm Carol."
A few minutes later we were sitting in a booth, waiting for our coffees to cool a bit, and talking about the 15th annual Rays of Hope breast cancer walk, of which Baribeau is a 2008 co-chair.

Celebrating 15 years of Hope
"I really want to get the message out that my goal as chair is to raise awareness, and money," Baribeau said.
As a member of the Rays of Hope Advisory Board since the late 1990s, she knows intimately how important the monies raised by the annual walk are to funding programs, research and support services for breast cancer patients and their families in Western Massachusetts.
"A lot of volunteer time is put into reviewing [the various grant] proposals and spending the monies that the walkers raise," she said, commending the 20 women from all walks of life business, medical community, Latino community and black community as well as several breast cancer survivors who give of their time to see the funds raised go to appropriate projects.
As a breast cancer survivor herself she was diagnosed in 2002 shortly before her 50th birthday Baribeau also knows from personal experience just how much of a lifeline the services funded by Rays of Hope can be to someone battling the disease.
"That was [walk founder Lucy Giuggio'] vision 15 years ago," Baribeau said. "She was a nurse, a medical professional, and she found it daunting to negotiate through the medical field and all the processes associated with her diagnosis and treatment."
"In the past 15 years we've made a significant difference in the care and treatment of breast cancer in our community," Lucy Giuggio Carvalho told PRIME in a telephone interview about the upcoming walk.

From confusion to coordinated care
Baribeau confirmed that a lot has changed since Lucy Giuggio was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1993 at the age of 38.
Back then there was no Internet to turn to for research. No Comprehensive Breast Health Center at Baystate Medical Center to provide information and guidance. No Regional Cancer Program to turn to for treatment options. No Cancer House of Hope or Cancer Connection programs to provide support services to patients and their families.
There was just the newly diagnosed patient and a lot of confusing, frightening questions.
Baribeau said Giuggio was left to figure out such important treatment questions as "What's the next step? Where do I go? Whom should I speak to?" on her own.
The walk founded by a then bewigged Giuggio in 1994 she was in the midst of treatment by that October was dedicated to making sure other women and their families weren't left to face a breast cancer diagnosis and treatment alone.
"Today, when I was diagnosed almost six years ago, the Internet was a great place to go to get information," Baribeau said. "But that doesn't make it any less important that the Rays of Hope has resources right here, that you can pick up the phone ant talk to someone who has been through [a breast cancer diagnosis]."
"Rays of Hope can help you sort it out," she said.
According to information provided by Rays of Hope, in the 15 years since the walk's inception the event has raised $6.5 million. Of those monies, $1.1 million has gone to fund local breast cancer research performed at Baystate Medical Center and at the Pioneer Valley Life Sciences Institute. The walk has also funded ongoing breast health programs at Baystate Regional Cancer Program's Comprehensive Breast Center, at Baystate Franklin Medical Center, Baystate Mary Lane Hospital and through community organizations including Cancer House of Hope and Cancer Connection.
"It's really because of the community that [the walk] is still here," Giuggio Carvalho said. "It's the individual walkers who raise the money ...$6.5 million . that's how much the community has supported Rays of Hope."

There's still work to do
But all this progress doesn't mean the work of Rays of Hope is nearing its completion.
"Early detection has really [created] a phenomenal change in survival rates," Baribeau said "But that is not to say that there aren't still people being diagnosed with later stage cancers and more aggressive cancers."
And she said there is still segments of the population that need to be reminded of the importance of paying attention to breast health.
"I'm reaching out to local colleges and asking them to form a team, and to have someone come in and speak to them about breast cancer and breast health," Baribeau said. "I know [these women] are young, but it's never too early . you can be diagnosed at any age. It's not too early to be aware of breast health and the potential for breast cancer, especially if there's a history in your family."
In her role as walk ambassador, Baribeau said she is also reaching out to local businesses both to encourage companies to support Rays of Hope and to speak to employees about preventative health care. She said she and Sandy Hubbard from the Comprehensive Breast Health Center usually bring along information about mammograms and the warning signs of breast cancer.
"In these days of health care costs, an early diagnosis will save businesses in health care costs and insurance premiums," she said.
And she's reaching out to local mayors, asking them to partner with Rays of Hope to raise awareness by declaring a "Go Pink" day in their city during October.
"We raise a flag, read a proclamation and ask employees to do a denim and pink day," she said. "We also encourage them to have mammograms, and to get their family members to get mammograms."
As for her impact on the 2008 walk, Baribeau said her efforts have brought some new corporate teams on board.
Among these additions are "the YWCA of Western Mass and Verizon . they never had teams before," she said.
Her goal for this October's walk is to "bring in more money than 2007 we raised over $850,000." she said.
"The economy is tough . people are thinking about heat and the cost of groceries going up, but I was encouraged by the amount of funds raised by the [recent] Stand Up to Cancer telethon." she said. "People are still giving to worthwhile causes."
Last year, over 13,000 women, men, teenagers and children took part in the walk and Baribeau said these participants raised their walk pledges in all sorts of creative ways.
"People hold wine and cheese parties and ask guests to donate $5 to Rays of Hope to attend, they cook a meal and raffle it off to friends and family . Rays of Hope was and is a grassroots organization and some of the fundraising ideas are so Lucy," Baribeau said.
When Baribeau says grassroots, she means all the way from the organization that plans the walk to the 300-plus volunteers who see to it that everything from shuttling walkers from remote parking lots to making signs for the teams to taking the pledges that are turned in that morning goes smoothly on walk day.
"Many of them have been there since day one, they are friends of Lucy and people from the medical community," Baribeau said. "They are a wonderful group of people . so committed and so dedicated. The know what they have to do and they do it."
"The whole walk started with no one with fundraising experience," Giuggio Carvalho said. "We 've just kept growing."

When it happens to you.

Carol Baribeau was a few weeks short of her 50th birthday and deep into planning a celebratory trip with her husband when a diagnosis of breast cancer brought her up short.
A member of the Board of Directors for Rays of Hope for nearly four years, she felt she pretty well understood the needs and uncertainties of a woman facing diagnosis.
But she never expected that she would be one of the women needing the services of the group she had volunteered to help.
"My gynecologist found a lump and sent me for an ultrasound," Baribeau said. "They couldn't find the lump, and sent me to a surgeon."
"Going in [to the surgery] he said 'I'll see you and your husband in a week or two','" Baribeau recalled. "When I came out of it my husband said the doctor wanted to see us that afternoon."
"I knew it was not good," she said.
Baribeau said she had no history of breast cancer in her family, though her father and grandfather had both succumbed to colon cancer.
She said she knew that she was still under the influence of the anesthesia when she and her husband saw the doctor later that afternoon.
"I'm not sure I comprehended what was being said," she said. "It takes days for it to sink in."
When it did, Baribeau said she immediately began reaching out to the Rays of Hope support system.
"I called Janis Kanagal at the Comprehensive Breast Center and told her my diagnosis," Baribeau said. "She immediately went into action, started making appointments to get a second opinion, reading reports for any additional surgery and talking to me about the next steps."
Baribeau said she called the center on a Friday, and by Monday she had an appointment with a surgeon for a second opinion.
"He said I needed more surgery, but that there was no reason we couldn't go on our trip." Baribeau said.
She and her husband headed off for three weeks on Maui.
"I started journaling," she said. "We walked on the beach and talked about our life together we had only been married for four years."
It was her first marriage, his second.
"It really did put everything in proper perspective," Baribeau said of her diagnosis.
When they arrived home, Baribeau said her husband went into research mode, checking out treatments and new approaches.

"He's a knowledge junkie," she said.
Beyond his help with treatment options, Baribeau said her husband also took it upon himself to pick her up at work and take her to treatment.
"It was a very bonding experience for us," she said.
And her experience also changed how she looked at her role as a member of both the Rays of Hope Advisory Board and the walk's co-chair.
"I've used the art therapy, the group counseling, the resource room at the Cancer Center, I've been a participant in Survivor's Day," Baribeau said. "It really does bring out a different awareness of a program's needs and values to have a personal diagnosis with cancer."
"To me, it brought a very different level of understanding," she said.