Helen Tyler was a 33-year-old wife and mother of two small children, living in the Arizona countryside that day in 1961 when she discovered a lump in her right breast.
Doctors at the hospital in the then tiny town of Mesa 30 miles away summoned her for a biopsy the next day.
“I was such a nervous wreck I don’t remember much about it, but I remember thinking on the way that I didn’t want to die,” Tyler said.
Surgeons sent the tissue to a lab in Phoenix. It was cancer.
In the days before chemotherapy, Tyler’s only option was the knife. Doctors advised a radical mastectomy.
“That’s what I did, and subsequently I was informed I had to have further surgery,” Tyler said. “I was told I had to have a complete hysterectomy. In those days, they took everything. And I was not allowed to take any hormones. It was bare bones. I just stayed in the hospital until I got the pain managed. They aren’t good memories.”
If somebody was free of cancer for five years back then, doctors considered him or her in the clear.
All Tyler could do was wait. Turns out, she was one of the lucky ones.
“Forty-eight years later, I am still doing my thing,” said the 81-year-old grandmother of five. “For whatever reason, I am in good health.”
Yes, things have changed for the better in the last 48 years. And the people who will be walking in the American Cancer Society’s fundraiser, the Auburn Relay for Life, tonight and tomorrow on the track at Auburn Memorial Stadium want to do their part to keep the good changes coming.
Tyler will be there, walking the oval with her team, the Sokico Fleet Feet, a member of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs (GFWC). This volunteer group of nin women — it includes three cancer survivors — has raised money for various organizations during the last 11 years, and the Relay is one of its biggest causes.
The Sokico Fleet Feet is one of 58 teams that will take part in the annual event, which begins at 6 p.m. and finishes at noon the following day.
“I keep hoping that all these millions of dollars everybody keeps raising for cancer will someday help find a cure,” Tyler said. “I want to see an end to cancer during my lifetime. The Relay gives me the unique opportunity to celebrate the lives of those who have battled cancer, remember loved ones lost, and support the American Cancer Society’s lifesaving mission by fighting back against a disease that has already taken too much.”
The opening ceremony begins at 6 p.m. Friday with the posting of the colors followed by the National Anthem and the survivors and caregivers’ laps. The official relay begins at 7 p.m., followed by a moving luminaria ceremony at 10 p.m. when people write the name of loved one on a candle lit bag and join it to hundreds of others lining the track. Following the ceremony, candles inside the bags are lit in support of those battling cancer, in honor of those who have fought the battle and won, and in loving memory of those who lost their battle. The candles will remain lit throughout the night.
On Friday night, the Auburn Youth Council will light the bags to spell HOPE, which will then turn into CURE.
This year’s event, built around a 1950s theme, is “Walk around the clock.” Events will be tailored to “Grease,” “American Graffiti,” and “Happy Days.” At midnight “Grease” will be shown on a giant screen brought in for the purpose, and Sandy and Danny, stars of the aforementioned musical, will sing songs written especially for the Relay. The Mr. Relay Contest has been moved to Saturday morning. A silent auction ends at 10 a.m. on Saturday for the Colon Cancer Free Zone.
For Tyler, the fight against cancer is personal for other reasons. The disease took Tyler’s husband, James.
Tyler can hardly believe the progress made.
“From my perspective, it’s just unbelievable all the things they have now. Back then there was a lot of guessing, a lot of ‘by golly, hopefully this is going to work.’ There is so much to be thankful for.”
Including, she said, the evolution of the prosthetic breast.
“Back then they didn’t have them, or if they did, I didn’t know about them,” Tyler said. “Maybe it was that I lived in the countryside in Arizona, maybe they didn’t have the public relations that they have today. Anyway, I was young, and I didn’t want to go around looking odd. If I was going out in public, I wanted to look half normal. So I took my husband’s cotton socks and put them in my bra. Then there were the ones that you blew up. They were plastic of some sort, and you put air in them. If you got them too full, they were very hard. They would deflate. Then they moved on to pre silicone. They were of varying quality, and some didn’t last long. Now they are so elegant, you can’t tell the difference.”
RELAY FOR LIFE
What:
When: 6 p.m.. Friday, May 15, to 12 p.m., Saturday, May 16
Where: Auburn Memorial Stadium, 801 4th St. N.E.
Theme: ‘Walk around the clock’
