With facial expressions that range from uncertainty to fear, hundreds of cancer survivors have taken the first, uneasy steps into the St. Cloud Breast Cancer Support Group's monthly meetings over the years.
Linda Bernett was no exception.
Bernett, who was first diagnosed five years ago, didn't know what to expect when she joined the group soon after she found out she had cancer. What she found was a feisty former school teacher leading the group in parodies of famous songs that made light of cancer.
Pat Opatz, the group's leader, has been fighting her own battle with breast cancer for more than 12 years. She has had six re-occurances, but now has been cancer-free for nearly three years. Her battles taught her many valuable lessons, but few were more important than not allowing the disease to destroy her sense of humor.
To share that lesson, Opatz, Bernett and five other Central Minesotra women joined forces to create the just-release compact disc, "With a Little Help from My Friends!" Aimed at raising money for research to better treat and ultimately cure breast cancer, the CD brings to the public their light-hearted approach to what can be a dark and deadly disease.
"At one of those meetings, we got to laughing about a bunch of things that are generally not that funny," Opatz said. "Then, all of a sudden, we all stopped laughing and took a moment to think about what we were doing, but we just started laughing again because we could feel how important it is to be able to laugh at the times in life that aren't necessarily supposed to be funny."
From those beginnings, Opatz started to put her humor into making parodies for the support group. Taking famous songs from days gone by, she crafted new songs that addressed serious topics like removing breasts, hair loss and nausea in a less-than-reverent tone.
Upon hearing the songs, and seeing the impact they had on support group members, Bernett knew there was a larger purpose in Opatz's simple parodies. With the help of her husband, Tom, who has a recording studio, and Ronnie Newman, former organist for the Minnesota Twins who donated his time to play background music, Bernett soon had helped the group through a three-year process that saw them record 13 of the best parodies.
And thanks to a grant from St. Cloud Hospital's CentraCare Health Foundation, the group recently took delivery of 2,000 copies of the recording.
All proceeds raised from the sale of the compact disc are being donated to cancer research, a cause both women believe is in need of large doses of attention.
"It's really sad when you look at how we are treating breast cancer today," Opatz said. "When my mother was receiving treatment for her breast cancer, she too was treated with radiation and chemotherapy. You would think that in the 42 years since her death, we would have come up with something other than the same old chemotherapy."
Bernett, who used to work for IBM, campared the situation to computer technology.
"A computer you can hold in your hand today used to fill a whole room," she said. "You would think we could have done something with this."
Bernett thinks the lack of financial support for research is appalling.
She recently began to look at cancer research and found the National Cancer Institute planned to spend $2.9 billion on cancer research this year, with $388 million of that earmarked for breast cancer research. While admitting that these appear to be large sums of money, she said that in comparison to the pricetag on a single B-1 bomber (approximately $50 billion) it amounts to a "slap in the face."
Bernett gets angry every time she sees a pink ribbon, the symbol the American Cancer Society created for breast cancer awareness.
"I think we need to start burning our pink ribbons and replacing them with links of rusty chain," she said, "because cancer is not pretty and it is not pink. It is a painful and dark experience."
With 175 thousand new cases diagnosed and 40 thousand deaths attributed to breast cancer each year, the women hope their efforts will have a two-fold effect. In addition to raising the spirits of other cancer survivors, the women hope they can raise awareness for the need for greater attention for cancer research.
"We need to get our legislators and Congress people to see past the
pretty pink ribbons and recognize the seriousness of this disease," Bernett
said.