Breast Cancer -- The Faces Behind The Battle

Every year in King County, 1,150 women find out they have breast cancer. Two hundred die from it.

In Washington state, there are 4,000 new breast-cancer cases a year, and 750 deaths. In the nation, the numbers mount: 180,000 new cases and 43,000 deaths every year.

Today, a predicted 10,000 breast cancer survivors, their families and supporters of the cause are donning running shoes for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation's Race for The Cure at the University of Washington. Aside from being an emotional show of solidarity, the event is expected to raise a record $300,000 or more toward the fight against the disease.

But what's important to remember is that behind the numbers and news of treatment and hope for cures, there are the women - and even men - and their loved ones whose lives have been changed - and often cut short - by breast cancer.

So today, Scene puts faces to the statistics, faces of just some of the thousands who have won. Of some who have not. Of some who lived prominent, public lives. Of others who marched to their own cadence. All are people whose lives and stories are worth highlighting.

Seattle Times staff reporters Ian Ith, Mary Elizabeth Cronin, Ferdinand M. De Leon, Marc Ramirez, and Sherry Stripling contributed to this report.

CASUALTIES -----------

Sandy Campbell, Ravenna Diagnosed: November 1985 Died: October 1993 Age: 50 Occupation: interior designer

If Sandy Campbell had an eye for anything, it was color.

As a successful, respected interior designer, her trademark was the vibrancy she brought to everything she touched, livening up otherwise stark commercial buildings such as the Sea-Tac airport.

And as a human being, she left her mark on others by being colorful in almost everything she did, from her clothes to her paintings to her outlook on life and raising two children, remembers her daughter, Lisa Campbell.

"The color thing goes to describe her person - just very classy and someone whom people admired for her ability to make her own statement," Lisa Campbell said. "But she was very dignified, and I think she held that strength when she battled that disease. She just was a fighter and really strong and determined to keep the family together."

Susan Gagnat, Southwest Seattle Diagnosed: About 1990 Died: 1994 Age: 46 Occupation: 26-year employee in varied roles at Northwest Airlines

Susan Gagnat's mother was pleased when Gagnat came home in 1990 after living in Hawaii for 14 years, though the happiness soon was clouded by concern over Gagnat's illness.

She loved riding horses, swimming and music.

The friends she made in Hawaii still contact her mother, said Hazel Gagnat, who describes her daughter as loving, understanding and thoughtful.

Gagnat's memorial service overflowed with her friends.

In the year before she died, she reconnected with a long-lost love - a son, Richard West, whom she'd given up for adoption as a teenage mother.

They didn't have much time, but they were able to build a good relationship, said her mother.

Kim L. Gordon, Central Area Diagnosed: May 1996 Died: Au. 21, 1997 Age: 32 Occupation: AmeriCorps supervisor

Until a couple of days before Kim Gordon died, she was making lunch dates. She knew breast cancer had numbered her days, but she wasn't going to sit around and wait.

Gordon put people at ease the moment she met them; she made them feel like old friends. She was a spark of warmth to her breast-cancer support group, Circle of Friends.

"She told us she was ready to die," said Linda R. Jones, who runs the group through the Center for MultiCultural Health. "She had made all the plans. She ended up consoling us rather than our consoling her."

Her concern was for her son, Kyle. Now 8, he lives with her sister, visits his father and is slowly making peace with his fate, said Cardell Thompson, Kyle's godfather.

A year later, Gordon's quiet fire is igniting interest in the Kim L. Gordon Memorial Cancer Walk. The Sept. 26 free walk is the first of what organizers hope to be an annual event to increase awareness about breast cancer screening and treatment: "The response has just been incredible," Thompson said.

Walkers are encouraged to carry streamers with the names of people who have survived breast cancer and those who have succumbed. Gordon's name will be flying high.

The two-mile Kim L. Gordon Memorial Cancer Walk begins 9:15 a.m. Sept. 26 at the Mount Baker Row House (Stan Sayres Pit), followed by a cancer resource fair. For information call the Center for MultiCultural Health: 206-461-6900.

Denice Hunt, Queen Anne Diagnosed: March 1991 Died: Dec. 25, 1997 Age: 49 Occupation: deputy chief of staff for Mayor Norm Rice

As an architect, land-use expert and master communicator, Denise Rowan was the person former Seattle Mayor Norm Rice relied upon to lead negotiations, mend rifts and bring people to discussion.

She represented the city in waterfront planning, negotiating land acquisition for the Seattle Symphony's new Benaroya Hall and putting together Westlake Park. She was the first African-American president of the Seattle chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

"She had tremendous negotiating skills," her husband, John, said. "When you had adversarial situations, she would always be there holding everyone together."

At home, as a wife and mother of two teens, she also was the leader.

"She was the one in the family who gave the kids the positive reinforcement while I was the disciplinarian," John Hunt said. "She was the key personality in our family."

Denice Hunt brought that same dedication and knack for communication to her six-year fight with breast cancer.

"She just calmly fought it right from the beginning," her husband said. "She had her dark moments, of course, but for the family, she was always pretty positive. You just always had the feeling she was going to whip it. But it was just too much."

Marianne Kydd, Bainbridge Island

Diagnosed: January 1996

Died: Oct. 27, 1996

Age: 46

Occupation: homemaker; former clothing company executive.

It's difficult for John Kydd to speak of his late wife, Marianne, without becoming engulfed in emotion.

To honor her memory, and to help out others who are grieving, Kydd set aside some land on his 5-acre farm on Bainbridge Island to build a haven for people who have suffered a loss.

"I chose to view death and disease as a savage gift, a gift one had to pay for dearly," said Kydd. "The notion of a garden for melancholy came up as a way to give back to the community."

Before leaving her career to focus on raising her family, Marianne Kydd had steadily ascended the corporate ladder. When she left Generra six years ago, she was an executive vice president.

As she was dying, neighbors and friends came to the aid of the couple and their three young boys, Sean, 7, Galen, 5, and Ryan, 4. A reminder of that outpouring of love is at the heart of the garden: a rock engraved with Chinese characters that mean "compassionate extended family."

"She and I both were able to somehow say that we're not going to let this ever get the best of us, but rather have it bring the best of us," Kydd said.

"In life and in her leaving, Marianne gave love and created beauty."

Petrine Marciniak-Carlson, West Seattle Diagnosed: 1992 Died: 1995 Age: 39 Occupation: community corrections supervisor

Petrine Marciniak-Carlson nurtured flowers and friends, and with the friends she was direct and loyal.

Her garden was filled with flowers, said her husband, Dave Carlson of Olympia, and they flourished under her dedicated care.

She was even more dedicated to friends, who described her as very open, Carlson said.

She looked people straight in the eye and her look gave a clear message, which Carlson describes as:

"Here I am. Take me for what I am. If you don't want to be my friend, I'll go away."

But once she made the determination someone was a friend, "there was almost no way to get out of it," he said. "She was very supportive, very loyal."

Her support continued after she was diagnosed. She extended help to the fight against breast cancer and to women fighting the disease.

"She had lots of integrity, on and off the job," Carlson said. "She had very high standards."

Wendy Morse, Queen Anne Diagnosed: May 1991 Died: July 1996 Age: 36 Occupation: marketing and motherhood

Only a month before Wendy Morse's second wedding, she learned she had breast cancer.

That didn't stop her.

In the five years she fought the disease, she got married, had her second and third children, and ran about four miles a day, pushing a double stroller with a group of other mothers who lived on Queen Anne Hill.

"She was a wild woman; she was fun," her husband, Flip, said. "She was really, really spunky, a live wire. Some women are demure, some are calm. She loved living."

Her successful career as a marketing director ended of her own choice as soon as she found out she had cancer. Instead, she dedicated herself to motherhood and life in general, her husband said. While going through chemotherapy, she still circumnavigated Green Lake every day.

About two weeks before she died, an article she co-wrote about her struggle appeared in the August 1996 issue of Glamour magazine, lending inspiration to women all over the country.

"She fought her cancer with unbelievable determination and courage," Flip Morse said. "She had so much fight and so much spirit and so much will to live. But her will just couldn't overcome it."

Dorothy Raykovich, South Seattle Diagnosed: March 1991 Died: August 1993 Age: 69 Occupation: homemaker

There was something about Dorothy Raykovich that attracted people to her. Something about her caring spirit and friendliness made people feel comfortable.

"To me, she was more than just a mother," her son, Ben Raykovich, said. "She was my Mum. There was really nothing, it seemed like, my mother couldn't solve. And she would always be there."

She had smarts and tenacity. As a popular fixture at Longacres racetrack, where she helped her husband train thoroughbreds, she drew people with her charm, and also with a knack for horses.

"She could handicap horses really well," her son recalled. "She could really read the racing forms."

As she lost her battle with breast cancer, her son said, her family refused to view her death as a lost cause.

"It's unfortunate a lot of people die of breast cancer," Ben Raykovich said. "But I think each person who goes through it lays another stone toward the development of cures."

Beth Ann Rowan, Vancouver, Wash. Diagnosed: March 1995 Died: November 1997 Age: 32 Occupation: emergency-room nurse

As an emergency-room nurse, Beth Ann Rowan saw it all: bloodshed and healing, tragedy and near miracles.

As a breast-cancer patient, she battled for her own survival the same way she worked to save others' lives every day.

While undergoing chemotherapy, she was offered the chance to skydive for a television show on cancer patients. She jumped at the opportunity, even though it "scared her to death," her husband, Rod Rowan, said.

"But that was just the way she was," he said. "She would take on those things, including her cancer. She would just stand up and embrace it with a passion."

For her husband, son and twin daughters, Rowan left behind the memory of someone who wouldn't give up.

"She just had that ability to instill a lot of confidence," her husband said. "She was the one who would make you laugh. As horrible as cancer has been, and the pain and tragedy of her loss, I wouldn't change a day of it."

Penny Schick, West Seattle Diagnosed: 1991 Died: 1994 Age: 43 Occupation: dental office manager

A month before she died, Penny Schick, her husband, Jim, and son, Aaron, braved forest fires to camp at Winthrop's Perrygin Lake.

It was telling of Schick in two ways, says her mother, Nancy McPhee: First, that she would keep the commitment she made a year earlier; second, that she would do it against all odds.

The family hooked up a portable generator to keep her IVs going. The trip had to be cut short because of difficulties, McPhee said, but nonetheless her daughter made it.

Schick died on her son's 13th birthday and her parents' anniversary, not the timing someone so determined to celebrate life would have chosen, said her mother.

Schick gave life everything she had. She bicycled, played tennis, spent time with her family and was surrounded by friends.

In her youth, her teachers pulled her mother aside to confide, "Oh, Penny is a wonderful person!"

"She was just well liked," said McPhee. "She had a wide range of interests, a good sense of humor. She was a beautiful girl."

Denise Wiest, Phinney Ridge

Diagnosed: December 1989

Died: February 1998

Age: 42

Occupation: lawyer

When she started having mild contractions during her first pregnancy, Denise Wiest insisted on first going to her office to take care of unfinished work before heading to the hospital. Her husband eventually talked her out of that.

"She didn't like to be idle," her husband, Art Chapman, said, chuckling at the memory. "She was very determined and just driven in a lot of ways and she had a lot of energy."

After she became ill the first time, Wiest cut back on her work to spend more time with her young sons. When her health allowed it during the years her cancer was in remission, she did volunteer work at their school.

She continued to work at her law firm, where she specialized in real- estate contracts, until she relapsed in 1994. She is survived by her husband and sons, Silas, 10 and Samuel, 12.

"She loved life," Chapman said of his wife. "I don't think she ever came to terms with the fact she had to die. I thank her for that. She showed me the strength and determination I'd want if I had to face something like that. Right up to the end she was still mad she had to go."

Even in her final days, Chapman said, she still had a list of things she wanted to get done - work that remained unfinished.

SURVIVORS -----------

Linda Badion, Rainier Valley

Diagnosed: May 1987

Age: 52

Occupation: homemaker, occasional apartment-complex manager

After surgery and chemotherapy, Linda Badion was free of her cancer for eight years. But three years ago it returned and since then, her life has been a series of setbacks and hard-won victories.

This summer, she's been winning.

"I have a good outlook, but I do have my down times," said Badion. "I just live day by day."

Before she became ill, Badion worked as a King County Council receptionist. She then took a job for a company that provided coupon kiosks to grocery stores, and later managed a sweatshirt and T-shirt shop.

But Badion has long had an interest in the performing arts. She plays the piano and she also has done some acting and modeling. She was an extra on the locally filmed show "Northern Exposure" and was the hand double in the scenes in which the Elaine character played the piano.

"I know what I have can be life threatening but I go on," Badion said. "I have places to go, people to see and things to do."

Doris Hill, Mercer Island Diagnosed: December 1997 Age: 51 Occupation: outreach and education coordinator, King County Office of Human Resources

Ask Doris Hill about life and what comes to mind is her granddaughter, Khari.

Hill's life is packed full. She has a husband and two grown children. She skis, plays cards, and is a member of a book club that is heavy on the social side.

She has a full-time career helping King County workers balance life and work and she gives back to the community in her spare time with such programs as one that helps African-American youth develop an interest in skiing.

But the shining light is her granddaughter, who's within daily hugging distance now that Hill's daughter and son-in-law have moved in with her and her husband.

"My granddaughter is so young and I'm very reminded of the vitality of life," Hill said. "I'm just getting a lot of enjoyment out of having her in my company."

Everything has taken a different perspective since her illness, Hill said. Her family was always important but now it's even more so.

She's grateful for advances in science and technology. She knows every case is different, but she wants to get across the message to women to assume the best, not the worst.

"My experience has not been terrible and your experience doesn't have to be terrible, either. It can be all right. It was all right with me.

"I know what it feels like to feel bad and I feel good. Until there's something to change that, I'll move forward in a positive direction."

She has one more message: "I highly recommend self breast exam. It can make all the difference in the world."

Patty Loveless, Newcastle Diagnosed: August 1995 Age: 51 Occupation: Spanish teacher

Patty Loveless loves to teach. She taught in her native South America, and now, living on the Eastside, she teaches elementary-age students in Bellevue how to speak Spanish.

"When I teach, I give a lot of myself," the native Peruvian says.

So it was with great reluctance that she took a year off when she was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 48. She felt little fear or resignation; she simply needed time for herself. It was what her instincts told her to do.

"I enjoyed music, dance, everything," Loveless says. "Better to have no stress. But I came back."

She had a modified radical mastectomy and six months of chemotherapy. She says doctors told her that during surgery, she muttered something in her anesthesia-induced sleep. "All is gone," she said.

Afterward, in the recovery room with her husband, children and friends, she was so happy, she says. Like nothing had happened.

Now 51, she's back on the job. To other women, she would say this: "It's not the end of the world. I'm doing more now than before."

Ellen Nakata, Bainbridge Island Diagnosed: August 1994 Age: 58 Occupation: bookkeeper

Since recovering, Nakata has exercised on a treadmill to maintain conditioning and bone mass. She eats well and wisely, including soy milk with cereal, to increase her intake of soy (believed to reduce risk of breast cancer recurrence) and decrease fat consumption.

"It's surprising how you change your eating habits," Nakata said. "You become healthier."

For Nakata, the initial mammogram came back negative. But she sought a second opinion, suspicious of the thickened breast tissue she had discovered. It turned out to be a tumor contained in the milk ducts. She had a modified mastectomy and reconstructive surgery eight months later.

Nakata cherishes the support she's received from her family and friends, many of whom she's met through the Race For the Cure. She's enthusiastic about the race. Central Market in Poulsbo, where she works, is a race corporate sponsor - reflecting the support of her husband, Don, CEO of Town & Country Markets (Central is one of its six area markets).

Her store has registered 314 participants. Most are family and friends of survivors.

"My whole family has gone to the Race for the Cure all these years, even my grandchildren," Nakata said. "Once you go to the stadium and see all the people and what goes on you just want to do more."

Myrtle Newsome, Madrona

Diagnosed: September 1995

Age: 77

Occupation: retired nurse

In 1943, Myrtle Newsome came to Seattle from Little Rock, Ark., for wartime work at Boeing. Instead she found a career that would be her lifelong passion.

For 31 years, until her retirement from Virginia Mason Medical Center a dozen years ago, Newsome was a nurse.

"I really enjoyed nursing," she said. "I enjoyed taking care of the really critically ill. I preferred that."

When she was diagnosed with breast cancer three years ago, Newsome applied what she learned from her patients about dealing with serious illness.

"I believe if you have a good healing attitude you can survive longer," she said. Although not all of her cancer was removed, she has been in remission for three years.

Since her retirement, Newsome has turned her energy to her volunteer and fund-raising work for the National Council of Negro Women, and various Catholic organizations. And she tries to keep up with her growing brood. Along with her four children, she now has 15 grandchildren, 16 great-grandchildren and one great-great grandchild.

"I have enjoyed life," she said.

Sandy Quinn, Liberty Lake, Spokane County Diagnosed: April 1986 Age: 61 Occupation: mental-health counselor

Quinn has moved 12 years and a load of worries away from the day she was diagnosed with breast cancer - a date she's quick to recall: "You don't forget those things," she says wryly.

Like most women diagnosed with the disease, Quinn said, she felt a lump, had it biopsied; a week later she had a mastectomy.

"It kind of whips you along at a reckless speed," Quinn said. "A lot happened in a short time."

The tumor had not spread to the lymph nodes so she was able to avoid chemotherapy and radiation. And for that, "I consider myself really blessed," she said. She elected to have a breast implant a year later.

Quinn, who for six years has counseled cancer patients at Spokane Oncology and Hematology clinics, shares with them the legacy of her experience: "The challenge becomes moving on with your life."

Quinn has. Mornings she water-skis with "the little old ladies of Liberty Lake." She conducts two free breast-cancer support groups at the clinics where she works. The 15 members, calling their team "Bossom Buddies," raised $8,600 at Spokane's last American Cancer Society Relay for Life, "more than any other team," Quinn said. She produced a video with two other breast-cancer survivors, "Journey Through Breast Cancer," to help women cope once the surgeon says, "I'm sorry, it is malignant."

"I've learned a lot from cancer patients about living, dying and courage," Quinn said.

Call Sacred Heart Hospital media services for information about the video: 509-458-5236.

Lois Rathvon, North Seattle Diagnosed: August 1986 Age: 73 Occupation: choreographer, movement specialist

Rathvon lives her life the way she wants. Cancer hasn't changed that.

A lifelong dancer, she performs in a tap-dance trio, "Swinging at 70."

She choreographs, recently restaging Vaslav Nijinski's ballet, "Afternoon of a Fawn," for the University of Washington Chamber Dance Company.

And she co-teaches a movement-awareness class for breast cancer survivors at Cancer Lifeline. By practicing the emotion of movement, the women learn to relax the tense body language that accompanies anger.

"If you change the movement, the emotions change right along with it," Rathvon said. "You can't feel angry in a free-flowing motion."

Cancer realigned her priorities.

Rathvon was diagnosed a few months after she resigned as dance-department chair of the Cornish College of the Arts, where she continued to teach until four years ago. As a dancer, she was used to sore muscles. As she attempted to massage away soreness in her left breast, she discovered the lump.

She returned to work four weeks after the mastectomy; six months later she had a saline breast implant.

"I really felt that the physical activity was of major value in terms of my healing process and regaining full use of my arm," Rathvon said.

Kathy Ray, Issaquah Diagnosed: August 1988 Age: 52 Occupation: retired teacher

The seat belt of her new car was uncomfortable. Kathy Ray told her husband, who checked it out. They had friends try it. No discomfort.

It occurred to her to do a breast self-exam. That's how she found the lump.

Ten years ago last month, the former pre-kindergarten teacher was diagnosed with breast cancer, and 10 years later, here she is, helping other women face the disease as a volunteer for Reach To Recovery, which provides emotional support and information via one-on-one visits from a survivor.

"No one in my family had ever had breast cancer," Ray remembers. "I felt like I had just been given a death sentence."

With the support of her husband and teenage sons, Ray went through a mastectomy and then reconstruction. These days, one of the hardest things for her to do as a volunteer is leave a woman who she knows does not have the same kind of support.

Before long Ray was back into her old routine. There were too many baseball and football games she didn't want to miss.

One of her special memories was seeing her own Reach To Recovery volunteer come up the walkway to her house. Margaret was a flight attendant for Delta Airlines. Here was someone who had battled the disease - and apparently won.

"I looked at her and I thought, `I'm gonna be OK,' " Ray says. "She looked wonderful. That's one of the best things Reach To Recovery can do."

Bridgette Richardson, Skyway

Diagnosed: February 1996

Age: 37

Occupation: homemaker/owner of a hair-braiding business

How Bridgette Richardson learned she had breast cancer is an unlikely story, one that she knows others will find difficult to believe.

She says she was sitting on the couch at home when she heard a voice say: "Get a mammogram now." Richardson, an active member of her church, believes it was the voice of the Lord.

At the time, she hadn't suspected anything was wrong. She was young. She had no family history of the disease. She felt no lump.

But sure enough, tests showed she had a cancer growth so tiny her pathologist marveled that she knew it was there.

Since her recovery, Richardson has focused her energy on her family, which includes her husband, Joshua, and their daughters Dolores, 17, Shaprece, 12, and Shayla, 5. She also is working to build her hair-braiding business and raise awareness about breast cancer - particularly among other African-American women.

"In the African-American community breast cancer is still taboo and women are afraid to go to the doctor," she said. "Too many are dying because of late diagnosis."

For her efforts, Richardson was nominated as "inspirational breast cancer survivor" for the Wall of Hope on display at the Bellevue Nordstrom last year. And she crowed proudly that her eldest daughter, Dolores, won a national essay contest on how to promote better health care.

"I'm blessed," Richardson said. "I really am."

Bonnie Wegner, Puyallup Diagnosed: May 1978 Age: 69 Occupation: volunteer bike mechanic

For Bonnie Wegner, being diagnosed with breast cancer seems to have amounted to little more than a speed bump on the path of life.

The scar from her mastectomy still was healing when she got herself out of the house and did the Sound To Narrows run.

"Life is to enjoy," she says.

These days the retired bike shop manager helps other women nourish the same attitude as a volunteer for Seattle's Team Survivor Northwest, which provides health education and exercise programs for breast cancer patients and survivors.

A number of the group's members recently rode in the Seattle To Portland bike ride, "which was just glorious," Wegner says. Next summer, she plans to do her third cross-country bike trek with a friend.

Facing mortality helped Wegner learn to treasure relationships and not let life's little aggravations get her down. Car won't start? Doesn't matter. Long line at the post office? Big deal.

And the rain?

"Quite frankly," she says, "things like rain feel good. Because you're among the living. And you can feel the rain." ------------------------------- The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation's fund-raising and solidarity-building Race for the Cure events begin at 7 a.m. today at Husky Stadium. For more information 206-667-6700.