CANCER SURVIVORS TO LEAD OFF RELAY FOR LIFE

Charlotte Lanpher has been a cancer survivor for 17 1/2 years. As frightening as the diagnosis was, Lanpher says cancer can bring beneficial changes.

"You certainly put your priorities in order. You realize life can be a short stay here and that everything has a new meaning. Everything is valuable."

Lanpher will be one of the 60 cancer survivors who will circle the lagoon at Capaha Park at 6 p.m. Friday in the Lap of Hope that begins to the 14-hour Relay for Life sponsored by the American Cancer Society.

Twenty-seven teams from the Cape Girardeau area have signed up to spend the night circling the lagoon. At least one member of the team will be walking or running at all times until the relay is over at 8 a.m. Saturday.

Each team has raised money that will be donated to the ACS. A similar event held recently in Jackson netted $15,000. Other relays have been held this year in Sikeston and Perryville.

"The Relay for Life is our signature event," says Amy Evans, development specialist for the ACS in Cape Girardeau.

In 1998, the ACS raised $127 million through the Relay for Life, which represents 30 percent of its annual income.

Many of the teams organized by churches, businesses and other organizations include cancer survivors. "It shows there is hope," Evans said. "People do survive this."

Pam Spradling, wife of Cape Girardeau Mayor Al Spradling III, will open the ceremonies. The Spradlings are the parents of a cancer survivor, their son, Bert.

While some team members are walking or running, others will be camped out in the park. Face painting, martial arts, line dancing, a scavenger hunt and a magic show are among the other activities planned.

Lanpher now is a certified trainer for the ACS Reach to Recovery program, which trains volunteers to visit women who are facing breast cancer. She knows exactly what these women are going through.

She had a checkup after discovering a mass in her breast. A mammogram was performed but her doctor was unable to find anything wrong.

At her next checkup a year later, another mammogram was unable to detect the cancer but a biopsy did. "We've come a long way since then," she says.

Lanpher had children between the ages of 6 and 16 when the cancer was discovered. " I was devastated," she said. "... I feared for my life, that I was going to be dying and leaving four children."

Those were the days when women first were getting a choice between a lumpectomy and a mastectomy. She and her doctor chose the latter to be sure.

"My opinion was to do what I have to do to get me back home with my family. I remember thinking, I don't have time for this. I have four children to raise," she said.

"... Fortunately it was the slow-growing type and I was home free."

Women now are better educated about breast cancer, have more treatment options and the benefits of breast reconstruction surgery. Ten years ago, they were most worried about losing a breast, Lanpher says. Now their biggest worry is that the cancer may have spread, "that they won't be a survivor."

Lanpher, who now has her own insurance agency, says it's a shame that cancer sometimes has to be the reason people take stock of their lives.

"It's what I call a wake-up call," she says. "Once we have something like that it really hits home to us. We take a hard look at ourselves and our lives and realize what we have."