mmilliken@heraldsun.com; 419-6684
DURHAM -- It took Tina Staley just one sentence to explain why she helped create Pathfinders, a program to change the way breast cancer patients are treated.
"You could have the best medicine, you could have the most beautiful building, and yet when I looked in people's eyes, I found fear, distance, separation," Staley, a social worker, told an audience of about 200 people Sunday afternoon at Duke University Chapel.
They were gathered for a service to honor Pathfinders members living with breast cancer, as well as those members who have passed on.
Its Web site describes Pathfinders as "a comprehensive, psychosocial support program for cancer patients with a primary emphasis on quality-of-life. By addressing the social and spiritual issues that accompany a cancer diagnosis, the program fosters healing and personal growth for patients and their families."
One speaker at the service was Jennifer Kalkhof, who has lived with breast cancer for five and a half years. She called Pathfinders an inspiration during her illness.
"I've got a lot of resources to rest back on and to draw from to keep my strength up through the next five and a half years that I'll be around," Kalkhof said.
She finished her talk with poignant assertion.
"Barring a fiery car crash or some other catastrophe, cancer will take my life," she said. "But it's not going to get it while I'm still living."
The next speaker was Cecilia Williams, who has had stage 4 breast cancer, the most serious kind, for eight years.
"Allow God to comfort you and develop a plan for moving forward," she advised. "For me, the pillars of Pathfinders are a tool to do just that."
Wende Sanders, a 32-year-old personal coach from Winston-Salem, is Williams' daughter. She said she was grateful that Pathfinders has provided her mother with a support system.
"It's a safe place to go to to be able to talk about whatever you're going through -- the good stuff and the bad stuff, and people don't get tired of you talking about it," Sanders said.
Larry Fischbach of Rocky Mount, Va., said his late wife, Lee Patterson, was treated at Duke in mid-2007, a few months before she died.
Before they went to Duke, their doctors "found out it was stage 4 and they said, 'We don't think there's anything we can do for you. Come back when it recurs.' "
The couple got involved in Pathfinders at Duke. Fischbach said his spouse was a spiritual person and "really appreciated having a kindred soul [in Staley]. I appreciated that they were not only looking out for the patients but also the caregivers."
Duke hired Staley about four years ago to bring Pathfinders, which originated in Colorado, to Durham for intensive research. Scientific studies show that Pathfinders helps patients enjoy greater quality of life, she said.
But the program is at a critical moment because its initial grant is finished. Staley and associates are seeking new funding to prove that Pathfinders can help sufferers of other types of patients.
Sunday's service was filmed by six cameras for "I Wanna Know What Love Is," a documentary on Pathfinders being overseen by Ted Bogosian. The filmmaker hopes to get it shown at Durham's next Full Frame documentary festival.
