Carolyn and the Cancer Fighters -- Day 15 of 25 Memories -- A Countdown to Our 25th Anniversary Gala by Dorothy Gibbons

Dixie rarely had the desire to go to evening meetings, especially if they were in Houston.


“I’ve lived all over the United States and in some foreign countries, I’ve done all the traveling I want to do.” She’d retort when I would try and convince her that driving from Pasadena to Houston wasn’t exactly like driving to the next state.


So I was really surprised when she called me all excited about attending a Monday night Texas Executive Women’s meeting. Seems she had discovered that Carolyn Farb was going to be the guest speaker, and Dixie was determined to meet this lady.


“Something tells me she could be important to The Rose,” She said. All the way over to the meeting she kept affirming that we’d get to meet Carolyn. Dixie believed in affirmations.


“If I can just get two minutes with her,” Dixie spoke her desire aloud and her enthusiasm was contagious. “I know I can convince her. She just needs to hear about what we are doing. She’ll be excited about helping us.”

In 1988, we sure needed someone to be excited about helping us. The first Rose Center had opened but all our big dreams seemed light years away. The landlord had booted us out of the first “free” space and begrudgingly shuffled us into another. My time was gobbled up between work at the hospital and the administrative stuff like payroll, reconciling bank statements and publicity for the Center. I was also fielding the day-to-day questions and occasional crisis of finding a new tech or machines breaking down. Spare time was non-existent and writing grants was hit or miss. Everyday was a struggle.


The final straw came when we were forced to move once again and finally signed a formal lease. Now we had a five-year commitment hanging over our heads.


We needed a champion -- someone who could help us with fundraising, someone who had connections … someone like Carolyn Farb. Her name appeared regularly in the society pages and any charity event listing her as chair was a guaranteed success.


So we showed up at the meeting and the TEW members made a big fuss over Dixie, introducing her to the crowd as one of their first Women on the Move.

We were sitting in the front row as Carolyn gave her talk, full of the dos and don’ts for fund raising. Her style and delivery exuded pure confidence. When she did make eye contact it was deliberate and focused. Her words were concise and to the point. Her gleaming white designer suit wrapped perfectly around her petite, slender frame and set off her long blond hair. Occasionally she would use her hands to accent points in her talk, but for the most part her gestures appeared controlled and small.

When she finished, the meeting was officially closed but folks continued to mingle. Dixie was primed. We waited until the waters of people parted from around Carolyn. I gave Dixie a little push. Suddenly Dixie was face to face with her, towering over Carolyn, Dixie’s high heels making her even taller.


I held my breath watching as Dixie launched into her spiel. She truly was going full speed ahead at this point. No breaths and nonstop.

“Hi, I’m Dixie Melillo and that was a wonderful speech. Everything you said about raising money is exactly what we needed to hear. We’ve started the Rose, Dorothy and I,” she motioned at me, “It’s a non-profit, and we’re providing free mammograms to women who don’t have insurance. You cannot imagine how many women there are who need help. Breast cancer is a big issue and women just can’t afford mammograms. We sure could us your help. We just need some guidance about what we should do next.”



At that point, Carolyn glanced over her left shoulder and then … turned and walked away. She never changed the expression on her face, never acknowledged Dixie, never said a word.



Dixie stood silently with her mouth open. I was equally shocked. Several of the women were starting to gather around us, and soon Dixie regained her composure and became her usual friendly self. Before long we were making our way down the road for that long journey back to her office in Pasadena. It was late; we were tired. We didn’t talk much. An oddity for us



Two years later, Dixie got a call at her office.

“Dixie,” the voice had a cultured quality to it and there was no mistaking that Carolyn Farb was on the line. “I’ve been thinking about what we were talking about and I want you to meet the Cancer Fighters. They’ve received a special bequest from a member’s estate, and I think there could be an interest in The Rose.”

Carolyn paused, and then continued, “I don’t have time to talk now. I just wanted to give you a quick call and see if you’d check your calendar. When would be a good time for you? I want to set up a meeting between you and their president.”


So began our relationship with Carolyn that would ultimately span over the next decade and include a dozen different types of encounters and events.


We’ve learned that the universe seems to have its own time schedule. We keep reminding each other that some things aren’t meant to be, and we just have to be patient.


Fortunately, meeting with the Cancer Fighters was one of those “meant to be things.” Joan Gordon, a founding member of the group, had left $10,000 in her will for a special and meaningful project. The Board and members were researching options on where the money could do the most good when Dr. D. Jane Taylor and Carolyn Farb came to them with a suggestion: The Rose.


They met. They talked. They voted.


Soon an empty shell in a strip shopping center had carpet, drapes, chairs, medical equipment, office furnishings and supplies and The Rose’s Joan Gordon Center was a reality.

Linda Strevell was the President of the Cancer Fighters at that time and orchestrated many events for us, helped raised money, and served as an office volunteer. Linda recently shared memories of those early days:

I was at the front desk one afternoon when a young mother came through the door with her two children. She settled them in the reception area and with a concerned look on her face came to the counter. Several months earlier she had found a lump in her breast and, with very little money to spend, went to see a doctor. He told her to “watch” the lump and come back to see him in six months. After hearing about The Rose and its mission from a friend, she came to the Joan Gordon location.


This woman was very upset, stressed out over her situation and worried that she had breast cancer. When she completed her story, I simply told her, “If your doctor had a lump on his penis you could be sure that he would not ‘watch it’ for six months. With “Director Dorothy” screeching in the background, I was undeterred.


I was subsequently moved to the back office area where my tongue was held in check. After a while, I was once again allowed to serve at the Front Desk.


One day a gentleman came in with his wife, she filled out a form and was taken into the screening area. I looked over at him and he smiled and told me that his wife was very hungry, but he had informed her that she could not eat prior to a mammogram.

On the way to the appointment they stopped for fast food and he said as soon as she came out he had the sack right there for her. I couldn’t help but think, “Ahhh…True Love.”


Eventually, we moved from Stella Link to Bissonnet and now have a beautiful facility on the third floor of the Foundation Surgical Hospital near I59 and I610. When giving tours there, I tell the story of Joan Gordon and the Cancer Fighters. And I say another silent “thank you” to Carolyn Farb.





This memory is one of 25 short stories written by Dorothy Gibbons, the Co-founder and CEO of The Rose, a nonprofit breast cancer organization. She and Dr. Dixie Melillo received the 501C3 documents for The Rose in 1986. A memory will be shared daily, culminating with number 25 on the day The Rose celebrates its 25th anniversary November 10.


© 2011 Dorothy Gibbons. All rights reserved.

Let’s Talk About Amy -- Day 14 of 25 Memories -- A Countdown to Our 25th Anniversary Gala by Dorothy Gibbons

Some people you know you’re going to like even before you meet them.  Amy was one of those for me.

Everything on her resume was exactly what we needed. She ran a mammogram center which had about the same volume as ours, she was registered in mammography and the list of her volunteer activities was long and impressive. After spending seven years as assistant director of human resources (back then we called it Personnel) at the hospital, I knew how to read resumes and spot the patterns.  Hers was flawless and to top it off her middle name was Rose. That had to be a good omen. The only problem was she lived in Longview (about 4 hours north of town) and she wouldn’t be available for two months.

She explained during a telephone interview that she was getting married in April and would be moving to Houston to live with her new hubby.  Two months seemed a long way off especially since I only had two techs on board, juggling the three machines and two centers. We needed someone now, but, for whatever reason, I agreed to meet her the next Saturday she came to town.  More than 20 years later, am I ever glad I waited.

From the sound of her voice and the way she spoke, I fully expected to meet a young, petite blonde who fulfilled the stereotype of being just a wee bit of an airhead.  

While Amy (far right in photo) did turn out to be small (weren’t we all back then?), she was the same age as me and had thick black hair. So much for my blond theory.  The idea of airhead was also pretty much expelled, except she did talk a lot. She still does.  Amy can talk about anything and everything, seldom coming up for air. 

I remember one time we had gone to an out of town conference and were sharing a hotel room.  After a long day, we were snug in our separate beds around 9 PM, and I was ready to call it a day. We had talked all day, first during the three-hour plane ride, then throughout the registration and as we walked through the exhibit hall, and finally into the evening over dinner. We had a great visit, discussing everything from work to husbands to kids to dreams to The Rose.  

I rolled over and turned out the lights. Amy kept talking, four hours later she was still talking.  I woke up early the next morning and carefully slipped out of bed, trying to be quiet so as not to wake her. I had just cleared the end of the bed when suddenly she sat straight up and started talking picking up right at the point I had fallen asleep the night before.

When I hired her, Amy really didn’t want to be the technical supervisor; she’d done her stint at supervision. She didn’t want to help with the support group; she’d gotten too close to the patients in the one she ran in Longview. She didn’t want to be on any committees.  She just wanted to be a tech, do the work, and go home to her new life. However, natural leaders always emerge and take charge.  Once a boss, always bossy and Amy was that, in the nicest of ways.  

Almost immediately, Amy took over the annual state inspections. Mammogram centers had just started being accredited and there were lots of questions that had not been answered about documentation. So every possible piece of paper that we thought could be needed, reviewed, signed or stamped was gathered and put in order to be ready for the inspector.

The first time I went through an inspection with Amy, we worked till 3 o’clock in the morning, reviewing and readying our paperwork.

Now I didn’t personally witness what happened that next day but it was verified by more than one person who was looking out the window while eating breakfast at Alfred’s, the restaurant located across the parking lot from our center. The tale also made the rounds among those at the State inspection office and was once labeled the most unbelievable inspection in the history of mammography.

Amy was running a little late that morning.  The inspector had already arrived and was waiting in his car away from the Center door when the noise behind him made him check his rearview mirror.  A huge blue van was coming at him.  The van was turning a bit too sharply and appeared to be balancing on two wheels. He held his breath as the van careened, righted itself, and narrowly missed the bumper of his car.   

Of course, Amy was driving the van.

She screeched to a stop, bumping the van’s front end against the curb. She swung the door open, jumped out, then opened the van’s back door and jumped back in, tossing two huge bags over her shoulder. Next, she turned and started pulling at something that was behind the driver’s seat.  A few more tugs and an old black purse, almost as big as the bags, popped out at her, spewing items all over the sidewalk.  She snatched them up, stuffed them back into the purse and then continued digging in it. A few moments passed when she smacked one hand against her forehead, having just realized the keys she was desperately searching for were dangling from her other hand. Only then did she start moving toward the Center.

The inspector, still recovering from the near collision, had watched her arrival and decided to give her a few minutes to open up. He opened his door and was starting to get out when he noticed she had come back outside. 

She vanished around the side of the van. Then she walked back into the center juggling a big box and the three-ring binders we’d created the night/morning.   

Two seconds later, she was back outside and again went around to the side of the van. When she came back into view this time she was balancing a full laundry basket against one hip and a full-to-overflowing bag of groceries on the other hip. (Our washer had been on the blink so she had carried the towels home to launder, and it was support group night, hence the goodies.)

On the third trip, she was loaded down with hanging clothes and two shoe boxes, another trip in and back out.

The fourth time she emerged from the side of the van, she was bent over, holding the old IBM typewriter we’d used for our prep against her stomach. She sort of struggled forward, shuffling a bit and nearly tripped on the curb.  The inspector was making a move toward her, ready to help but she had propped open the front door of the center and was inside before he could reach her. He told folks later that at this point he was a bit mesmerized by this back and forth parade.

What happened next was straight out of an espisode of “I Love Lucy.”  Amy retuned and walked directly to the back of the van.  She opened the doors, reached in, and pulled out an ironing board.

At the very moment the board cleared the van, the legs sprang open with a loud pop.  She stumbled backwards almost falling into the approaching inspector.  When he said, “Can I help you?” she screamed, swung around, and hit the inspector with the board she still held in her hands. 

It was going to be a long three days.

Amy was mortified and started talking.  There was a function that day, she explained hurriedly, with the Cancer Fighters. She went on to tell him who the Cancer Fighters were, how they had started the second center, how we really needed the money and how she had to go to this function. She had brought a different outfit to wear that needed to be touched up.  The function wasn’t until 4 PM but with the inspection, she wouldn’t have time to go home. 

She rattled on and on still holding onto ironing board. Then she spied the inspector’s bleeding arm and started apologizing.  He stood there, first staring at her and then at the blood running down to his wrist. 

When he finally did go inside, she insisted on doctoring the scratches.  She tried her best to make him feel better by bringing him snacks in between each set of paperwork. 

For some reason, the inspector took a lot of smoke breaks that day. Pity, since he said he’d almost beat that habit.

The next day, he arrived at the main office and things went from bad to worse. In the middle of inspecting the second of two machines, the light field didn’t work right.  Over the years, the light field was a minor but persistent problem on this machine which had been corrected time and again by the service guys. In fact, it had been worked on the week before and was in perfect alignment, but not this day.  This kind of problem wouldn’t have meant a violation, but it would have been a ding on Amy’s perfect record. 

I’ll never forget her barging into my office, her face flushed, those dark eyebrows knotted together as she threw her hands on my desk, leaned forward and in a voice a little too loud said: “Remember we talked about replacing Unit 2?”

I nodded.  

“Well today’s the day we get rid of it!”

“Wait, Amy. What do you mean? We haven’t raised the money for a new one.  We can’t just get rid of this one.”

“Oh yes we can!” she exclaimed, her eyes flashing. “I’ve already called Ron and he’s sending his guys over to move it out.”

“What?”

“It won’t pass.  That stupid light field again.  So I asked the inspector, ‘What would happen if it weren’t here?’ He said he couldn’t inspect what wasn’t there. So I unplugged it and it’s out of here...TODAY!”

I sighed.  There was never any arguing with Amy once her mind was made up. 

When the three days of inspection finally came to an end, we gathered in my office.  Amy and I sat on one side of my desk, she in a chair pulled close to the corner and the inspector sat on the other side.  He spread out paperwork, made faces and tapped a sheet here or there before starting the debriefing. We held our breath. He looked up and began a long drawn out explanation of what he inspected, what the parameters were, why they were important, but the only words we heard were: “You passed!”

Simultaneously, Amy and I burst out crying and started hugging each other. (As was our usual professional approach.)

He just shook his head.

Many years later, Amy heard that this inspector was terminally ill -- lung cancer. In her normal way, she reached out to him, sending a note, telling him we had added him to our prayer list.  He responded, thanked her for her kind words and teased about her about that first unforgettable visit.  Just like Amy herself … unforgettable.

Amy Rigsby continues to serve as The Rose Tech Director, supervising the work of the mobile units, working with our support groups, and helping create greater breast health awareness through health fairs and … yes, talks to groups large and small.

 

This memory is one of 25 short stories written by Dorothy Gibbons, the Co-founder and CEO of The Rose, a nonprofit breast cancer organization. She and Dr. Dixie Melillo received the 501C3 documents for The Rose in 1986. A memory will be shared daily, culminating with number 25 on the day The Rose celebrates its 25th anniversary November 10.

© 2011 Dorothy Gibbons. All rights reserved.

Navigating, Empowering -- Day 13 of 25 Memories -- A Countdown to Our 25th Anniversary Gala by Dorothy Gibbons

The call came about 2 o’clock in the afternoon. The American Cancer Society had referred the caller to us. We were the tenth call of her day, and she was at a pay phone with few quarters left.    

She began her story. 

“My name is Jerri and I’m 36 years old.” she said “I found a lump in my breast about 4 months ago.  I was hoping it would go away but it didn’t, so I finally got a mammogram at the diagnostic center downtown.  I heard that was what I needed to do, get a mammogram but it cost $125 so I had to wait till payday. Then they said I needed an ultrasound and that was another $250.  Then they said I needed to see a surgeon and so I did, and he said I had cancer and I would need surgery.  First he had to do a biopsy, and that was going to be another $1,000. Then when I had it done, it was for sure that I did have cancer. We don’t have any insurance.”

I remember thinking that in spite of having breast cancer, this woman was oddly calm.  Of course, she’d repeated this story ten times during the past couple of hours so maybe she was on automatic pilot.  Much later I learned of her terror.

She continued to chronicle the last few weeks.  “The surgeon said he would work with us for his fee, we could pay him out.  But, he also said I would have to go to the hospital to have a mastectomy, and I needed to have it done pretty quickly. 

“My husband is a mechanic and makes $9 an hour. We have about $350 every two weeks to work with, but our car is broken right now.  We don’t have much money.  I went to the hospital and talked to the people about making payments, or doing a payment plan.  They wanted a credit card, but we don’t have one.  Even though we don’t make much money, we always pay our own way. 

“I have a nine-year-old son and the last time I was in the hospital was when I had him. Anyway, the hospital said that we could pay it out but they needed $1250 as a down payment.  So we called our relatives and finally my husband’s uncle loaned us the money.  Then when I got to the hospital they wouldn’t let me have the surgery until they had another $750 down payment for the anesthesiology.  My husband was frantic and started making more calls. Finally, another relative put it on a credit card.”

By now, I was enthralled with this woman’s story.  I kept trying to figure out why she had called us; she had already had a mammogram, an ultrasound, and a biopsy. Those were the services I could have offered her.  Maybe she was looking for a support group or information on reconstruction.  I waited, listening to her words, the cantor was halting, and she had a childlike manner of speaking.

“So I had the mastectomy.  That was a week ago and today I went back to see the surgeon.  He said the cancer was real bad. Something about the pathology report.”

“Did you see that report?” I interrupted.

“Yes,” she said “I can read it to you.”

Before I could stop her, she had put the phone down and I heard her fumbling with papers.  The sounds of traffic filled the space, horns honking, the starting and stopping of engines.  When she returned, she immediately launched into reading the report, stumbling over some of the words, sounding them out.  She was right, the cancer was bad.

When she finished, I simply said ok, and asked, “Then what happened?”

She continued, “The surgeon said I would need to have chemotherapy and I needed it right away.  I thought the surgery was all I would need, I thought that was it.  No one ever said anything about chemotherapy.”  She paused. 

“Yes, Jerri,” I said filling up the silence, “chemotherapy sounds like the right course of treatment.”

“He arranged for me to go see an onconologist [sic]—is that what they are called?” she asked

“Oncologist” I responded.

“This oncologist,” she said the word perfectly, “His office was just down the hall from the surgeon’s office, so the surgeon called him to arrange for me to go right over.  The surgeon said I shouldn’t wait; I needed to go right then.”

I was growing uncomfortable now; the small knot forming in my stomach was sending out loud signals. Jerri had stopped talking again, I was afraid we had gotten cut off. Finally I heard a deep inhale, and she continued.

“I was in his office, the oncologist.  I had taken my chart with me and he was sitting behind his desk and looking over it.  He said, ’Yes this is very serious, and we have to start your chemotherapy immediately.’ I asked when. He said, ‘We’ll schedule the first treatment this Thursday and then you will need 6 to 9 more every three to four weeks.’

“How much is this going to cost?’ I asked him.  He said, ‘Cost?’  I said, ‘Yes, I will have to find the money because we don’t have insurance.’  He said it was very expensive, thousands of dollars.

Now Jerri’s voice broke.  I waited.

“Then he handed my chart back to me and said, ‘I can’t help you.’”  Her voice cracked again. 

Another pause, finally in my softest voice I asked. “He handed it back to you?” 

She said yes.  She didn’t remember what else was said, she was so upset.  She just remembered thanking him and taking her chart. She left the office, walked outside, found the nearest pay phone and looked up hospitals listed in the yellow pages and started calling them. 

“I was lucky there was a book here in the phone booth,” she said. 

Lucky? I thought. 

She continued, “I must have called four or five hospitals when finally someone said to call Reach to Recovery at the American Cancer Society and they were the ones that said to call The Rose.”

My mind was reeling.  I knew there had to be a way to help her but first things first.

“Jerri, let’s start over.  Do you have a phone at home?”

“We used to, but it’s been disconnected.”

“And your surgery was a week ago?”

“Yes, I still have the drains in.”

I almost lost it then.  It was hot outside.  Houston can be hot any time of year but this week in November was miserably hot. I imagined the scene at the other end of the phone line. A young woman standing at a pay phone, fighting off the heat and the fumes from the downtown traffic; feeding one coin after another into a pay phone; hoping against hope to find help, with her drains still in place.

“Jerri you are talking to Dorothy, don’t forget this name. Give me the phone number on that pay phone please.”

There was a pause and she said. “I don’t see one. It’s not on here.”

“Ok, then is your husband with you.”

“No I took the bus; he had to work today. He’s already missed too much on account of me and we need the money. I lost my job when I got sick; it was only a part time job but it was something. They didn’t need me anymore. We don’t have much money now.”

“Can you give me his work phone number?”

“I don’t know it; I never call him there."

“Where does he work?”

I could tell she was uncomfortable, she hesitated, maybe worried I would call him and he’d lose his job, so I changed my approach.

“Jerri, we will find you help but let me explain some things. We don’t do chemotherapy here at The Rose, but I will find someone who does and who can help you.”

At least I hope I will, I said silently to myself. 

“I want to be sure I have a way to reach you, just in case something happens and we get cut off during this phone call.”

She understood and gave me the name of his work.

“Are you feeling well enough to stay on the line for a little while?” I asked.

She said, “Yes, I just have to be home when my son gets out of school, around four o’clock.”

It was so incredible, I almost laughed.  Her priorities were absolutely clear. She had to be home by four.

I, on the other hand, had started to panic, mentally weighing the best approach and whom to call to try to get her into the public health system.  Most of all, I knew I couldn’t let her hang up because I had such a bad feeling that I’d never find her again.

So I said, “No matter what Jerri, stay on this line.  I’m going to put you on hold and make some calls.  Do not hang up. Promise me that.”

She said okay, then she asked me, “Who are you again?”

I said “Dorothy Weston.”

She asked, “I mean what do you do there? I could call you back.  I’ve already taken up so much of your time.  Are you sure it’s ok for you to keep talking to me?”

I said, “It’s ok, Jerri. I’m the boss.” 

That was the moment she broke down and cried.  For the next ten minutes, she cried, big sobs pouring out between her saying “I’m sorry.” She cried. I talked, telling her it would be all right. She cried some more. I kept talking. 

By now, I had caught the attention of one of the employees who was passing by my office, frantically I motioned for her to come into the room. While reassuring Jerri, I had found the numbers needed from my Rolodex so I scribbled notes to my employee asking her to start making the phone calls. 

I glanced at my watch -- 3:15 p.m. I had been on the phone for over an hour.  It was a Friday afternoon so finding someone still in their office would be a trick.

My employee returned, indicating some success.

I said to Jerri.  “I want you to talk with one of my employees now, while I talk to a couple of people.”

Within the next hour, we made a dozen phone calls. First, calls to oncologists finding no help, then calls to the county hospital district and frustrating minutes of being kept on hold with the eligibility office. Then a call to the clinic assigned to her zip code. The public health folks wanted her to come in for a consultation and to have an initial screening. 

“She already has breast cancer!” I almost screamed into the telephone.  I gave up and went another way.

Finally, I reached Dr. Nancy Neff, at Ben Taub and she made the calls. Between about six people and as many phone calls, everything was set up. Jerri’s application for public health would be expedited and her chemotherapy started. 

Initially, Jerri had difficulty understanding what we were doing.  She had never accepted charity before, had always paid her own way. She didn’t understand that she could qualify for public health. I was asking a lot of questions about her finances and demographics and work history so she could be assigned to the right referring clinic, and she was suspicious of the whole process.

Finally, I explained that her doctor would take the drains out on Wednesday morning; her appointment at the clinic would be that afternoon.  We had reached him and explained the situation.  He hadn’t been told about the outcome of Jerri’s visit with the oncologist. 

Of course, Jerri had a few other worries as well, such as having grocery money for the week.  They had used every penny from their savings for the diagnostic work-up and biopsy. My heart dropped when she told me that, because we could have helped her there – had she known about us.

Our employees went together and provided Jerri’s family with Thanksgiving dinner.  She started her chemotherapy. We received a couple of letters from her, but the last one sounded as if more hard times had hit that family. Jerri’s plight haunted us. 

Hers was the example we used in the introduction of an ambitious grant proposal to the Episcopal Health Charities. We needed a better way the proposal explained. The community needed The Rose to do more than provide mammograms and biopsies. What we needed was a physician network and a staff assigned to navigate women through the system. The Charities agreed and their grant launched the program that is now modeled throughout the nation. 

The Rose's award-winning Empower Her® Sponsorship Program has been nationally recognized as a model for serving the uninsured, and, last year, provided sponsored screening and diagnostic services to more than 8,500 women. The program includes Patient Navigators and the Physicians Network, who, since beginning in 1999, have navigated almost 2,000 uninsured women with breast cancer through the healthcare maze of treatment options. Last year, alone, the Physicians Network donated over $7 million in services to patients of The Rose thereby ensuring that desperate calls like Jerri’s always have an answer.

Even though her story was the impetus for one of our most successful programs, Jerri didn’t know what she inspired. The lost of contact with her worried me. And then . . .

On 12-15-2003, I received this note, handwritten in a gold colored ink on a small Christmas card with no return address:

“I would just like to say Thank You so very, very much – it has been 5 years now, but I don’t know if it would have been – if not for you all! May God Bless you All!"

Merry Christmas from

Jerri, Paul & Steven 

This memory is one of 25 short stories written by Dorothy Gibbons, the Co-founder and CEO of The Rose, a nonprofit breast cancer organization. She and Dr. Dixie Melillo received the 501C3 documents for The Rose in 1986. A memory will be shared daily, culminating with number 25 on the day The Rose celebrates its 25th anniversary November 10.

© 2011 Dorothy Gibbons. All rights reserved.

Bold Support -- Day 12 of 25 Memories -- A Countdown to Our 25th Anniversary Gala by Dorothy Gibbons

As we worked to ensure The Rose would be there for the women who needed it, we rarely attracted the attention and financial contributions of the bold-faced types. You know the ones I mean, those people whose names appear in the society columns, printed in bold black letters noting their presence and support of this or that charity event.

I’d attended enough non-profit events to know the importance of success stories.  However, our compelling stories involved women who didn’t have insurance, and our service was in diagnosing cancer not in treating it. Plus, I’ve learned that inherent prejudice exists towards the uninsured. They’re often characterized as lazy indigents who won’t work or categorized as illegal aliens.  One-on-one “asks” of donors involved the long educational process of explaining the various scenarios of the uninsured before we could solicit any level of understanding … and possible contribution.

I tried to convey that most of our sponsored women worked at low-paying jobs which didn’t provide insurance, or they had just been laid off or had some life-changing event that meant losing their coverage. One of the saddest cases was the 63-year-old, whose husband had divorced her taking with him the insurance.  Finding any kind of work at that age was difficult, and she was banking on staying healthy until she was 65.  The lump in her breast put a crimp in that idea.  Did we ultimately help her get coverage through Medicaid/Medicare?  Yes. But it took over 13 months of processing paperwork to do so.

I could sometimes get the message through to the unbelieving by asking them what would happen if they lost their job and insurance? How many months could they afford to pay for Cobra, especially if there wasn’t any money coming in?  How long would they take the chance on going without insurance? What if they thought there was another job right around the corner? Would they chance having no insurance for one month? Three? 

Sometimes they would listen when I explained that at that time, we had gathered over a hundred cases of women finding a lump in their breast in that first month without insurance coverage. 

The truly cynical stubbornly argued, “Somehow these people find a way to pay for car insurance!”

“Excuse me,” I’d counter. “Car insurance is a State law.

“No matter,” they’d insist, “If those people cared anything about their health they’d have medical insurance.” 

Yeah, right.

Even with our success in conveying the plight of our sponsored women to local foundations, we continued to struggle to attract people of means, those individuals whose personal connections could move forward our cause. 

So I can tell you the month, the time of day, and exactly what I was doing when I was introduced to one of the first “bold-faced names” to cross our path. Thank goodness she was one of the good ones.

It was October, national breast cancer awareness month, and I had just gotten back from giving a lunchtime presentation.  I was sitting in Felicia’s office, helping her to get reports out; we were two days behind and I was determined nothing was going to distract us.  That was the moment the call from Linda Hofheinz was put through. 

“Hofheinz” is a name that most long term Houstonians would recognize -- synonymous with the building of the Astrodome and linked to the city’s colorful political scene.

I cradled the telephone between my neck and ear, intent on my task, trying to do two things at once when my pen stopped in mid air.  The voice on the line, responding to my hello said, “I’m Linda Hofheinz and I was diagnosed with breast cancer in April of this year.”

Linda’s voice was measured and smooth, with an almost singsong quality to it. Carefully articulating each word, she said, “I’ve been talking to Mary O from the Rose Buds support group. Do you know her?”

I said confirmed that I did, adding that Mary had been a real supporter. 

Linda continued, “I know. Mary was telling me about The Rose.  Actually she was raving about your programs.  She’s a real fan.  She told me that you help women who don’t have insurance or money to get mammograms.  Is that correct?”

Again I said yes, simultaneously trying to guess what had prompted this call.   

“As I was saying, I was diagnosed in April and I cannot imagine what it would be like to go through breast cancer without insurance or money.  I have a strong support network. My husband and family have been wonderful, and I have insurance.”

I think I came back with some feeble response about how important it was to have support, and I started to launch into all the different services we offered for the uninsured women.

She stopped my impending verbal onslaught by saying that Mary was very knowledgeable about our programs and had impressed her was with all she had shared. 

Then without skipping a beat she said, “I want to make a donation and just need to know your address. Where would you like me to send this check?”

Never in our history had anyone ever called and asked for the address to send a check. 

Typically, I was the one calling people asking if I could send them information about The Rose, hoping against hope that they would read it, and maybe someday, in the future, be moved to indeed send a check.

I was stunned, and for the briefest moment I couldn’t recall the address, the silence seemed endless until I finally regrouped and stuttered through it. She then asked if we were a 501 (c) 3.  I said yes, and thought I must have misunderstood what she said earlier.  She is calling for information, I said to myself. I’ll send it to her and then there will probably be some kind of long approval process. 

“Would you like me to send you a proposal outlining our programs or a brochure?” I asked, my confidence returning, proposals I knew how to do, fielding these kinds of calls I didn’t. “I can get right on it.” I assured her. 

“No.” She said sweetly, “I’m just making a note on my check.” With that she thanked me profusely for taking her call, again complimented The Rose and decisively, yet gently, said she really must be going and hung up.

I sat staring at the receiver in my hand until Felicia’s voice pulled me back into the room.  Over the next few days, I replayed the conversation a zillion times, questioning if I had heard her correctly, wondering if I had handled the call correctly.

I would soon learn that Linda was a woman of many skills, much diplomacy, and a steeled graciousness that made things happen.  Her check arrived four days later -- the largest donation from an individual that we’d ever received. That check marked a turning point in our history.

Over the next few months, the calls from Linda were highlights of my day.  I looked forward to talking to her, and the staff soon learned to track me down whenever she called. She always seems to posit yet another idea that would in some way or another enhance our image.

When Linda decided we needed a real brochure, she meant something professionally written, professionally photographed and professionally produced. She coerced her talented sister, Diane, into writing it, convinced her graphic designer friend Steve into handling the layout and enlisted the whole marketing team at the downtown Foley’s store into doing the photography for it. All the work was donated.

One of our original “bachelors” from the Soroptimist auctions, Randy Drake, printed three thousand copies, again all gratis, and it became the piece we used in every proposal, in press packets and with those special letters of inquiry. 

Linda would continue to drop in and out of our lives at The Rose. Since the cancer diagnosis, she had taken up photography and was pretty modest about all the awards she had piled up.  Her talent was obvious when she created the cover of our Cookbook – a still life featuring a vase of pink cabbage roses that makes our Cookbook stand out on the bookshelves.

Linda also designed our first logo.  One day, she called me out of the blue and said, “I’ve been thinking about the image of The Rose and I think I might be able to design something that would project more of what you really stand for.” 

Her design was profound and polished and captured, not only why we had started, but what we dreamed of for the coming days. And Linda knew there would be many more days for The Rose.

Soon we jumped from 7 employees to 21 employees and had to lease extra office space at the main center. New funding meant computerizing our system. We were involved in more fundraisers than ever before and began to receive publicity that would have made major corporations envious. Our circle of notables was growing.

Linda’s intuition about The Rose needing a new image was incredibly timely. We were leaving behind an old way of being and entering into a new one.  We had no option, the number of women needing our help continued to explode, forcing us into new areas and levels of service.

This memory is one of 25 short stories written by Dorothy Gibbons, the Co-founder and CEO of The Rose, a nonprofit breast cancer organization. She and Dr. Dixie Melillo received the 501C3 documents for The Rose in 1986. A memory will be shared daily, culminating with number 25 on the day The Rose celebrates its 25th anniversary November 10.

© 2011 Dorothy Gibbons. All rights reserved.

Why We Need The Rose -- Day 11 of 25 Memories -- A Countdown to Our 25th Anniversary Gala by Dorothy Gibbons

The headlines in the year 2000 finally blared the sad and chilling truth that Texas had the highest uninsured rate of any state in the nation. In Houston, over one fourth of the population -- almost one million people (at that time) -- didn’t have coverage.  A lot of women were included in that number. Private insurance, when it could be found, topped over $600 a month for one person, an impossible amount for the working poor.

Telling the story of The Rose has always meant fighting the prevailing misconception that the poor could access healthcare anytime they wanted, either through the county hospital or, if they have cancer, through M.D. Anderson.

People would say, “Anyone can get public health care.” That’s a true statement, but the cost of services is dictated by a person’s income.  If you happen to be totally indigent, you are eligible for free services. Heaven forbid that a person attempt to stay off the public dole and try to earn a living. The ultimate irony was that totally indigent women received the full range of care -- from mastectomy to chemotherapy to radiation therapy to reconstruction -- all free of charge; while the working poor got only what they could afford.

No insurance and get into a premiere hospital without money?  Not likely, especially if you made more than $3,000 a year and lived in Houston which was the eligibility level at some hospitals.  According to the State edicts, the county hospital was the approved facility for residents of Harris County. Folks from the rest of the state looked to Galveston’s public health system for help. Oh, it’s true the occasional uninsured patient would get into a clinical trial at a major institution, but she had to have one of the wild types of cancer that matched the trials.

The maze of rules and regulations grew more complex and changing criteria for eligibility was maddening. Remember, in Texas Medicaid was virtually non- existent, saved only for children and pregnant women; for the most part it still is.

Connie was one of Dixie’s clients. She referred Connie to a public hospital for her mastectomy and chemotherapy treatments.  Dixie knew about Connie’s financial struggle. She and her husband operated a small plant nursery that could barely eke out a living for their family. Unfortunately, the profits were gobbled up by the medication expenses needed for her recently diagnosed diabetic husband.

Any hopes of finding another job were squelched when she weighed it against the time and expense involved in caring for the special needs of a bed-ridden handicapped child. On paper, however, hers appeared to be a much different story.  The business showed a profit for two out of the three years in the information she submitted when applying for public health.  That and the fact that she was buying a home put her in the 100% payment range for services.  Back then, Dixie didn’t know about these quirks in the public health system; none of us did.

So Connie carried her little referral paper to the hospital, finished the approval process and went in for her mastectomy.  Before she knew it she received her first bill for $5,000.  Then she was told that chemotherapy was going to cost $400 every three weeks. She’d already signed an agreement with the hospital to pay against her account which grew larger with each lab test or follow-up consultation.  Before they would schedule her appointments for the chemotherapy, she was going to have to come up with the money.

When Dixie received one of those form letters sent to referring physicians, advising her that her patient was determined to be non-compliant since she had not returned for treatments, she called Connie.

Hearing Connie talk was disheartening.  She was more than a little angry about the whole set up, and she had no intention of going back.  The money and the hours and hours of waiting were taking a toll.  She had to pay for someone to stay with her child each time she went for an appointment which might be rescheduled or would take all day.  The time she had been hospitalized had really hurt what was left of the business. She simply didn’t have the money and was fighting to keep food in the house.  To top things off, her husband had a heart attack during this time and couldn’t help.

The hospital suggested she get a second mortgage which she couldn’t have gotten if she’d wanted it. We’ve since learned that some hospitals strongly encouraged folks to take another mortgage on their homes to pay for treatment.  For the patient who is terrified for her life, it seems the only solution.

Connie had decided she would just have to take her chances and hope the mastectomy got all of the cancer; she would do without the chemotherapy.  Dixie tried to convince her otherwise, offering to call the hospital and try for new arrangements.  Dixie knew Connie really needed the chemotherapy and asked her if she understood how important the treatments were?

Connie’s parting words hung in the air. “Dr. Melillo, don’t you understand,” she retorted a bit too sharply. “If I’d had an extra $400 a month to shell out, I would have had insurance.”

As always, it’s a matter of money … for our patients needing help… and for The Rose as we try to help them.

This memory is one of 25 short stories written by Dorothy Gibbons, the Co-founder and CEO of The Rose, a nonprofit breast cancer organization. She and Dr. Dixie Melillo received the 501C3 documents for The Rose in 1986. A memory will be shared daily, culminating with number 25 on the day The Rose celebrates its 25th anniversary November 10.

© 2011 Dorothy Gibbons. All rights reserved.