Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 4, 1992 TAG: 9202040294
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ANDREW H. MALCOLM
DATELINE: LINDEN, N.J. LENGTH: Medium
SUPPORT GROUPS HELP TEEN CANCER SURVIVORS
At first, they sound just like teen-agers - the awkward pauses to insure that they don't say the wrong thing, the almost palpable social discomfort, the exaggerated concern over blending with others, the "awesomes," the "uhms" and the "I mean likes."But then, in conversations, something doesn't quite ring adolescent. These young people seem too wise, too weary, too wary.
At a time when they should be concerned with pimples, pencils and passing passions centered on the latest unshaven, shirt-free rock band requiring mass adulation, these boys and girls know far too much about vincristine, Cytoxan, Methotrexate, Adriamycin and Cis-platinum.
They talk with the scarred openness of war-worn veterans twice their age about losing friends, limbs and battles.
In other words, these young people know cancer.
Every year 11,000 Americans under age 20 are diagnosed with some form of the dread disease. Once upon a time, no one of any age escaped alive. A generation ago the C-word, usually whispered out of respect for the soon-to-be-dead, was a sentence of doom with no appeal.
Today, 8 million Americans live with a personal history of cancer. Nearly 200,000 of them are young people.
Recently, about 50 of them from two disparate states gathered here for an evening of chatter, dancing, lasagna and chatter.
It's one measure of medical progress that two-thirds of all young people diagnosed with cancer now survive at least five years. That's a hard-won, tear-stained, nausea-filled victory for their patients, their families and the dedicated professionals who see them come and go from the oncology wards.
But how do adolescents who've confronted the end of life before their voices change, and then undergone chemotherapy, amputation, radiation and isolation, suddenly fit back into a teen society consumed with Friday's game, Saturday's mall reconnaissance and whether their high-tops are properly untied? How do bald 15-year-olds wearing wigs confide their fears about sudden aches to former friends who think remission has something to do with puberty?
They don't.
Enter New Jersey's New Visions and South Carolina's Lasting Impressions. They're support groups for teens with cancer. In regular meetings at New Brunswick's Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital and Columbia's Richland Memorial Hospital, members talk with peers who've endured just about every cancer treatment.
"It's really neat," says Susan Lipani, who is 17 and a New Jersey member. "There's like a special bond between everyone. You can talk about anything."
At New Visions, Susan meets other young people who laugh with her at how hair grows back a different color or like baby fuzz, even the second time. They don't deem it strange when Susan always wears her Mets hat indoors. And they tell her cool stuff like how Gatorade reduces chemotherapy nausea.
"Also," added 16-year-old Kyra O'Hea of East Brunswick, "you feel like you're helping others." That can be uplifting after 18 months of chemotherapy and radiation as you await the installation of a new hip.
"Sometimes," said Tom Roberts, a 17-year-old from Clarksburg, N.J., who takes powerful pills daily, intravenous medicine monthly and gets a spinal tap quarterly, "everything gets pretty intense. You think about dying. But you can't talk with healthy people. They don't want to think about death, let alone talk. I had to give up soccer. New Visions is like instant deep friends." Members also discuss handling over-protective parents, jealous siblings and whispering classmates.
The groups raise money for camps and trips. They write newsletters. They phone the relapsed or deliver balloons. They also visit the newly diagnosed as living proof of life. "We're survivors," says Tracy Scripko, the president of New Visions. "Cancer helps you find your true friends."