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‘Miles for Melanoma’ walk raises money, awarenessBy Christine Mastalio
Eight women stood in a circle, eager to talk about their friend and co-worker who died of melanoma. They smiled at her strength and shook their heads with indignation at a disease that struck without reason.
Speech and language pathologist for the Mississippi Valley Bend Area Education Agency, Deb Huebner died after her second recurrence of melanoma, a deadly type of skin cancer.
“She did everything right and still got it,” special education teacher Angie Fox said. “She lived a healthy lifestyle.”
The women from Adams Elementary School in Davenport came together in the lobby of the Pepsico Recreation Center at Augustana College on Saturday for the fourth annual Miles for Melanoma walk.
About 200 people walked 5 kilometers through the hilly campus to raise money and awareness for melanoma.
“People our ages, in their 40s and 50s, didn’t take care of their skin. We were staying out in the sun and we actually used oils to enhance burns,” said Chris Turnipseed, media specialist at Adams. “Now there are products out there to take care of your skin.”
Walk spokesperson Carol Ehlert, whose husband also has melanoma, stressed the importance of prevention.
“The prognosis for melanoma is not good,” Ehlert said. “Awareness and removing (cancer) early is. If it’s not treated then it metastasizes and goes to the organs.”
The walk and other fundraisers made more than $10,000, which will be donated to the Melanoma Research Foundation. The money funds junior research grants in memory of Quad-Citian Deb Sandry.
Sandry had melanoma for eight years before her death in 2002. The 40-year-old woman’s courage and influence sparked the first melanoma walk, Sandry’s mother Laura Longley said.
“At her visitation there was a four-hour line. So many people came for the visitation that (some friends) thought, ‘Maybe they’ll come for a walk,’ ” Longley said.
In four years, the walk committee has helped raise more than $25,000 for melanoma research. Billboards and other advertisements are donated by families, so that every penny raised goes to the national foundation.
Patti Hutson’s husband died of melanoma in 1996. She held a silent auction at Curves fitness center in Rock Island, and her son’s group was the first to finish the walk.
“I don’t think most people know a lot about (melanoma),” Hutson said. “I don’t think a lot of doctors know about it.”
Sandry’s family found that out the hard way. Two doctors dismissed the mole on her leg as harmless. A couple of years later, Sandry found out she had melanoma when she was pregnant with her second child.
She underwent two brain surgeries and several other operations to remove tumors that had spread to most of her internal organs. Sandry and her husband traveled to California for experimental treatments, but nothing stopped the disease’s progress.
“My grandchildren are at increased risk,” Longley said. “Like all cancers you hope for a cure, but like all cancers you have to have an early diagnosis.”
Sandry’s 11-year-old daughter, Becca, got ready for a softball game after the walk. Her mom had shared her passion for the game and helped teach her how to play.
“(Melanoma) is really bad and it’s killed a lot of people,” Becca said. “We can help other people survive.”
Education was the goal of another walker who lost her mother to melanoma in March.
“(My mother) had it 25 years ago on her skin and thought it was taken care of,” Dixie Lambrecht-Hovey said. “It snuck up on her.”
Lambrecht-Hovey said her mother, Jo Anne Peck, who recently died, was always careful to wear long sleeves and hats in the sun and didn’t realize that her cancerous mole could do damage inside as well as out.
“There can never be enough known about cancer as long as lives are being lost,” Lambrecht-Hovey said.
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