In the News

By Cammy Clark

Saturday was about remembering those who have died, celebrating those who have survived and raising money to “kick breast cancer’s butt.”

Nearly 25,000 people, including 1,200 survivors wearing pink t-shirts, descended on Bayfront Park for the 16th Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in Miami.

“It’s been very emotional, very exciting. We didn’t expect this many people,” said Grace C. Lopez, president of the national organization’s Miami/Fort Lauderdale affiliate. “But people by nature are more attached to a cause when it hits home, and apparently it has hit a lot of homes.”

Javier Blanco wore a pink tutu and pink bra to show how much he cares for his good friend Vanessa Apolinario, a secretary in the emergency room at Homestead Hospital.

“She needs support now more than ever,” he said.

In July, at just 26, the mother of 3-year-old Olivia and 1½-year-old Addison was diagnosed with breast cancer after finding the lump herself. Her sister-in-law kept a reminder card about self-exams in the shower.

Apolinario had a bilateral mastectomy and is now going through chemotherapy.

Her daughters’ eyes lit up Saturday when they saw their mom, waving pink pompons.

“My 3-year-old knows I’m sick. She knows my hair is gone,” Apolinario said. “Every day when I come home she asks if the doctor has made me better. I tell her, ‘Soon I will be better’.”

Women once were embarrassed to tell others they had such a cancer. Saturday, they celebrated their tough journey and their survival —whether it was three days (Jenny Dreyer) or 40 years (Robbie Bell).

The crowd cheered, some with tears in their eyes, as several hundred of the survivors strutted with pride toward the stage waving roses and beaming in triumph. They were united in hope for their own futures and the prospects of finding a cure so others might not have to suffer as they have.

The survivors were of all ages, ethnicities and backgrounds, including a congresswoman.

“We need to keep up the fight for funding, for research, to find a cure,” Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Weston Democrat, told the crowd. “I am a proud four-year survivor. On to victory over breast cancer.”

The crowd began arriving before the sun came up to support their mothers, grandmothers, daughters, sisters and best friends who have battled or are battling the cancer that strikes one in eight women.

Eighty members of team Pink Dynasty from Homestead came to honor Amelia Castellano, who died from the disease in 2006, and to cherish Carmen Santana, who has lived cancer-free for 12 years and counting.

Leki Lehrman, 13 and an 8th-grader at the Miami Arts Charter School, created a poster with two hearts and a halo. She has been supporting the Komen race since she was 8.

This year her theme was wing girls.

“My Aunt Mary just had a mastectomy three days ago and me and my mom are her wing girls,” she said. “And we are wing girls to anyone who needs it.”

Christophe Masson, originally from France and now a chef manager at the Westin Diplomat, wore a white body suit with wings. “Everybody should be touched by an angel,” he said. His mother is a two-year, breast cancer survivor.

The main event was a 5K run/walk that began on Key Biscayne Boulevard at Northeast Third Street and looped around downtown Miami. Tommy Barton, 23, won the men’s race in 16 minutes, 20 seconds. Larissa Sidorovich, 27, was the female victor in 20 minutes, 3 seconds.

There also was a one-mile fun walk and tot run for kids ages 2 to 7. The event, with plenty of music and dance performances, was broadcast live for the first time on CBS4 Miami.

The goal was to raise about $1.8 million from the race, about $200,000 more than last year. Among the big donors was South Florida Ford, which presented a check for $85,000 and had the biggest team, Pink Warriors, numbering around 300.

While October is National Breast Cancer Month, this year the Susan G. Komen organization had a new initiative to make it the “action month,” Lopez said.

Seventy-five percent of the net proceeds remain in the community, funding 33 grants for education, treatment and screening of breast cancer.

Friends Pam Gitlin, 55, Bonnie Fenn, 57, and Nancy Douglas, 51, of Miami are all members of team Book Club for Boobs. They are all survivors of five years or less and are thankful for advances in treatment, and for doctors’ increasing attention to the disease.

“I’m so glad I have Dr. D [Robert Derhagopian],” Douglas said. “He’s just a little squishy teddy bear who loves women and wants to cure them.”

Gitlin, a former beauty queen at the University of Florida, said: “I’m thinking of doing something spectacular with my life now that I’ve been given a new life.”

Saturday’s celebration was especially meaningful for Dreyer of Fort Lauderdale. Just three days earlier, her doctor told her the news she had been waiting to hear for three years: “There is no sign of cancer anywhere.”