LI advocates bump up efforts for breast cancer patients

Advocates for breast cancer patients are bumping up their efforts for October - National Breast Cancer Awareness Month - as a way of letting the public know about the struggles patients endure.

Women from Hewlett-based 1 in 9: The Long Island Breast Cancer Action Coalition and the Huntington Breast Cancer Action Coalition attended a kickoff ceremony Monday at Gold Coast Bank in Huntington to explain what it's like to have breast cancer.

"This is a horrible disease," 1 in 9 president Geri Barish told the gathering of Huntington Town officials, bank executives and breast cancer survivors. "You can be the perfect person and do everything right and you still get this disease." The American Cancer Society estimates 209,060 cases of breast cancer will be diagnosed this year. Barish, who has had three bouts with breast cancer, said she hasn't stopped fighting for a cure.

"This is not about an amputated body part," said Karen Miller, who heads the Huntington coalition, alluding to the mastectomies that many breast cancer patients undergo. "It's about life and death."

Jenni "JWOWW" Farley, star of MTV's "Jersey Shore" reality show, also attended, arriving in a pink limousine - the color that denotes breast cancer awareness.

In Garden City, preparations were under way for Monday night's celebration of 30 years of supporting women - and men - with the disease.

The Adelphi New York Statewide Breast Cancer Hotline and Support Program started in October 1980 with a few volunteers. It has grown to 100 - all of whom have had breast cancer - who are trained as telephone counselors to address psychosocial issues confronting someone coping with the disease.

"We started the hotline before there was a breast cancer awareness month," said Lyn Dobrin, spokeswoman for the program, which is part of the School of Social Work at Adelphi University.

National Breast Cancer Awareness Month was begun in 1985 by pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca to raise the profile of mammography and early detection. In 1991, the Susan G. Komen Foundation (now known as Susan G. Komen for the Cure) passed out pink ribbons to participants of its New York City race for the cure, beginning a symbol that now is synonymous with support for those with breast cancer. Komen was 36 when she died of breast cancer in 1980.

Her sister, Nancy Brinker, the former U.S. ambassador to Hungary, founded the organization to fulfill a promise to Komen that she would do everything possible to fight the disease.

Dobrin said when patients receive a diagnosis, they are frightened. "Hotline work is done by women who have had breast cancer, so when somebody calls, they are speaking to a survivor and that's very important," she said.

Adelphi honored those who started the program 30 years ago during a special program Monday night at the university's Ruth Harley University Ballroom.