Southern Comfort The gang’s (almost) all here
I arrived in San Antonio in the
afternoon, checked into a familiar
hotel, the Marriott Riverwalk,
quickly unpacked and crossed the
street to the convention center. It
was mid-December and I was at
the San Antonio Breast Cancer
Symposium (SABCS) again.
Despite the fact that the symposium is so close to the holidays
and always comes at the end of a
busy year, I was looking forward
to spending four days among old
friends and new science. This was
especially true this year, when the
American Association for Cancer
Research, CR’s publisher, became
a co-sponsor of the symposium.
I’ve been attending the SABCS for
a dozen years, and it has become
central to my work in patient
advocacy—and to the community
that I have built around this work.
DAnn Y WIlCOx FRAzIER
The cancer community can be
very affectionate, and that’s never
more true than in San Antonio.
There are survivors, advocates,
physicians and scientists who
attend this meeting whom I see
only once or twice a year. Perhaps
because I’ve known so many
of these people for so long, or
because I contrast the collegiality
with the more impersonal scientific
presentations, or because we never
know what will happen to us in the
intervening year, the interactions
are warm and genuine.
Indeed, within a community of
survivors, there is always loss—
there is always a person who was
a central part of the SABCS who
dies in the intervening year. I still
look for my friend Elva Fletcher
every time I walk into the Alamo
Breast Cancer Foundation mentor
sessions, which take place during
the symposium. Elva, who died in
2004, was always there to help
organize the program and make
everyone feel welcome. But in the
midst of such painful absence,
there are always new people,
too: those whom I have met in
the year since the last SABCS.
And while the new acquaintance
never replaces the old, the new
friendships and conversations
add another dimension to our
experience.
The survivors I see each year
keep track of one another’s
lives—personal and professional—
and of our health status, and years
of survivorship. When I missed
the symposium one year, I was
surprised that so many advocates
came up to me with expressions
of concern about whether I was
OK and of relief on hearing that I
was fine.
And, because my advocacy work
has been primarily in publishing
and education, it is exciting to see
the many physicians and scientists
who have become central to my
cancer community. It is thrilling to
talk to researchers whose work I first
featured in magazine stories 10 years
ago, or to attend their presentations
about clinical trials that I have been
following for years. Yet, our lives
and families are an equally important part of the conversation when
we run into one another.
We are all comforted by the
knowledge that there is a community
of people out there who follow our life
paths and care what happens to us.
CR | Page No. 5 | www.CRmagazine.org
Gwen Darien
Darien@CRmagazine.org
CR in San Antonio
CR reported live from the
San Antonio Breast Cancer
Symposium with daily
blogging and podcasts.
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