HOW TO PARTICIPATE
What: Hamilton Relay For Life
When: 1 p.m. Saturday to 7 a.m. Sunday
Where: Virgil Schwarm complex at Hamilton High School, 1165 Eaton Ave.
To sign up: Call 888-227-6446, ext. 4210 or email amy.newman 89@yahoo.com or ritaholmes@fuse.net
Luminaria ceremony: At dusk there will be a luminaria ceremony. The donation for the luminaria is $10 and can be ordered by emailing eyancy@fuse.net.
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Doug Yancy has had a on-again, off-again relationship with cancer going back 20 years.
Now as a team leader and a committee member for the annual Hamilton Relay for Life, he’s hoping to beat back the very word “cancer.”
He leads a team called “Bigger Than the C Word.”
“People have a lot of trouble just saying cancer,” said Yancy, 59. “But we’re bigger than that.”
Yancy’s first brush with cancer came in 1993 when he found some blood in his urine. It turned out to be bladder cancer, but a week and a half after he went to the doctor, surgery took care of it, and he was in remission for the next 10 years.
On a routine medical visit in 2004, however, his doctor found a mole on Yancy’s shoulder that turned out to be melanoma.
Another surgery took “a chunk off my shoulder” and shaved off two more moles. He was cancer-free for another seven years, until he started feeling sick on Halloween 2011.
A scan the next week revealed a three and a half inch tumor in his right kidney and on an unrelated note, a return of his bladder cancer.
More surgery, however, took care of both, and Yancy was fine again — until another melanoma turned up earlier this year.
Last year, Yancy got involved with the Relay for Life for the first time.
“The very first think we do at Relay is a survivor lap,” he said, “and then we have a survivor luncheon.”
At the luncheon, he said, he’d hear all the stories about chemotherapy and radiation, losing hair and weight, and felt like he had gotten off relatively easy.”
“I said I didn’t consider myself a survivor because every time I got a diagnosis, I’d get operated on and it would go away,” Yancy said. “I didn’t know what it was like to lose your hair and be down for days after chemo.”
“Relay For Life is a community event where everyone can participate in the fight against cancer,” said spokesperson Barb Zellner. “Corporate employees, friends, church groups, and neighbors join together in teams and take turns walking or running on the track during the over night event.
“This event is not a race, therefore participants may casually walk or run at whatever pace they are comfortable,” she said. “Each team is asked to have a representative on the track at all times during the event — because cancer never sleeps.”
Zellner said there are 23 teams signed up with a total of 300 participants for this year’s 18-hour event.
The registered teams set up booths around the football field and track selling crafts, candy and food, or a chance to play a game, she said. There is also music during the entire event.
A signature event is a luminaria ceremony which keeps the flame of hope lit in memory of someone lost to cancer or honor someone still fighting or who has beaten the disease, which last year honored 600 people.
“We spell the word ‘HOPE’ in the bleachers and line the track with luminaria,” Yancy said.
“It’s a weird feeling to see your name on a cancer survivor’s track, but it’s a good feeling,” he said.
The donation for the luminaria is $10 and can be ordered by e-mailing eyancy@fuse.net.
Zellner said even if someone has not registered with a team, they are still invited to participate.
“We would love to have anyone that has cancer and their family or friends that have been touched by cancer to come out and join us as we walk the track and share in the fight against this disease,” she said.
People may sign up for this event by contacting the American Cancer Society at 888-227-6446, ext. 4210 or by sending an email to amy.newman89@yahoo.com or ritaholmes@fuse.net.
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