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.