Stand Up To Cancer

Glenn Rockowitz

As a four-time cancer survivor, Rockowitz has plenty of experience talking about the disease. In this hilarious column, "How Not to Cheer Up a Cancer Patient," he offers a few "nuggets of advice" for providing moral support to loved ones facing cancer. Among his tips: don't give them a copy of It's Not About the Bike; don't expect thank-you notes; tell it like it is; and don't say things like "You should've taken better care of your body" or "Maybe this is your wake-up call to do something different with your life."
http://www.seattleweekly.com/2010-04-14/arts/how-not-to-cheer-up-a-cancer-patient/2

River Stillwood

After she was diagnosed with uterine cancer last fall, Stillwood, who built her own cabin in the rural Ozarks, applied the same determination to beating the disease, which had already penetrated her uterine walls and cervix by the time doctors discovered it. Now that the disease appears to have sounded the retreat, Stillwood says hope gets her through the remaining chemo treatments: "I want to see my nieces and grand-nephews grow up. I want to see my family again . . . There are thousands of things that I want to do, but more than anything, I just hope for life. I hope for time."
http://www.ksmu.org/content/view/6439/66/

Harriet Benjamin

Benjamin, who passed away in early April from lung cancer, was the inspiration for the Wellness Community, which was founded in 1982 by her husband, Harold. Benjamin faced breast cancer in 1972, and her experience with the disease exposed a void in the cancer treatment world: very few resources were available for the social and emotional health of cancer patients. Within two years, the Wellness Community offered 25 free support groups a week to those battling the disease; it later merged with Gilda's Club, a similar organization named for Gilda Radner. Benjamin was "the heart and soul of our organization," said the Cancer Support Community's president. "It was a brave and bold move for her years ago to decide she was going to be very public about her own cancer experience. She did not want people to face cancer alone."
http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-harriet-benjamin15-2010apr15,0,4878560.story

Mark Goldstein

Goldstein is not your usual breast cancer survivor: he's a 77-year-old man who faced the disease 21 years ago, and has now "strolled," as he puts it, in 203 Komen Race for the Cure events around the country. In this article, he says that his mission is "that men should not die from breast cancer out of ignorance"; so he wears a pink visor when he participates in the races, and runs "slowly enough so people pass me and see the message."
http://www.wdbj7.com/Global/story.asp?S=12286513

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