Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 13, 1994 TAG: 9405130101
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURA WILLIAMSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The treatments Jerry received rid him of the pain of lymph node cancer and saved his life. It's a debt the DeHarts have been trying to repay ever since.
Barbara DeHart signed up as a bone marrow donor and started to give blood. The DeHarts' daughter, Jeri - already a regular blood donor - started to give blood platelets, a longer and more cumbersome process. She, too, signed up as a marrow donor.
And the whole DeHart family joined the Relay For Life.
An annual Cancer Society fund-raiser, the Relay For Life is a 24-hour walkathon that begins today at Victory Stadium. Teams of one to more than 10 members will walk, jog or run around the stadium track starting at 6 p.m. in exchange for donations. They'll camp out in tents decorated for a "best team camp" contest and dine on picnic lunches.
They won't be alone. All over the country, local chapters of the American Cancer Society will be doing the same thing.
Mimi Walker, director of the Cancer Society's Roanoke/Franklin County chapter, said the event has raised $110,000 locally since it started two years ago. She hopes to bring in $80,000 this year.
The money goes toward public education programs, patient services and small grants for individual cancer patients and their families who need money to travel for treatments. Forty percent of the money raised goes to the national office for cancer research, Walker said.
The DeHarts have raised more than $1,000 each of the past two years. They expect to do the same this year.
"I thought in my case I was so fortunate," Jerry DeHart said. "I thought that we should help someone else."
DeHart feels lucky for many reasons. His family, already close when he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma six years ago, drew even closer during his illness. When chemotherapy failed to stop the cancer, an older brother and a sister volunteered to donate healthy bone marrow to replace Jerry's, a process that ultimately saved his life.
DeHart's brother, who became the bone marrow donor, drove from Greensboro to Roanoke last year to join the DeHart's relay team. This year the nine-member DeHart family team will include Barbara's sister and nephew, Jeri's husband and several of her friends.
They are walking, Barbara DeHart said, in honor of her husband and in memory of her father and of Jerry's father, who both died of cancer. They also will light candles in their honor during a special ceremony at 9 tonight. Each candle raises $10 for the Cancer Society.
The donations bring immeasurable value to the families they help, the DeHarts said.
Extremely hopeful about his illness for the first 18 months, Jerry DeHart suddenly became frightened and uncertain when he saw the transplant unit at UVa. Its stark and sterile facilities brought home the seriousness of his condition.
"It was a real shock to see the rooms up there," he said.
If his wife had not been able to stay at his side, giving him his daily baths and providing much of his care, DeHart said he doesn't know how he would have gotten through it.
Now 45, DeHart has regained his health, though not all of his strength. He tires more quickly than he used to, he said.
But that hasn't stopped him from working six days a week as a route salesman for a potato chip company, and it won't stop him from walking tonight so that others might survive their battles with cancer.
In fact, Jerry DeHart probably walks more than anyone else in the family, his daughter said. And there are two parts of the walk the family reserves for him alone.
"We let Dad start it off and let Dad finish it," she said.
by CNB