Team plans to walk the walk
Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in Los Angeles to bring awareness, raise funds for research
By Michelle Knight knight@theacorn.com

EVERY PENNY COUNTS- Maureen Jones, far left, and Susan James sort cans and bottles they collected from family and friends. The Camarillo women are members of a 12member Ventura County team that will participate in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in the Los Angeles area next month. The team is turning in what they collect for recycling money, which will help them raise the $1,800 per person they need to participate in the walk. Above, Jones, a breast cancer survivor, shows off a tattoo that includes the pink breast cancer ribbon, bearing the names of her children, wrapped around a gold cross. "My kids are why I'm still here," she said. "I wasn't about to leave them."

Maureen Jones asks you to walk more than a mile in her shoes- the single mother of two toddlers teams up with 11 other women to bring awareness to a disease by walking 39 miles next month in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in the Los Angeles area.

Several years ago, Jones immediately saw her doctor after noticing the lump in her left breast.

IRIS SMOOT/Acorn Newspapers

After she received a few diagnostic tests, the doctor told her the small mass was nothing to worry about and recalls him saying that at 34, she didn't fit the breast cancer demographic- and to perform regular self-exams and come back in five years for annual mammograms.

Then, after she gave birth to her daughter, another doctor took the lump more seriously and recommended she consult a surgeon. Jones soon heard the devastating diagnosis- secretory carcinoma, a rare form of cancer.

That was in early 2004- about five years after she first noticed the lump and saw her first doctor.

Over the next 18 months, Jones needed several surgeries to halt the cancer and reconstruct her breast. Jones said doctors told her they caught the slow-growing cancer early on, but that doesn't compensate for her doctor taking such a casual view of the lump simply because she didn't fit the profile of a breast cancer victim.

"They put it off to being something else without identifying it," said Jones, a Camarillo resident who's now 43. "Part of my walk is educating people."

Jones said of the women of team "Healthy Hooters, Everyone Deserves a Pair," "All of us have been touched by breast cancer in some way."

Although her last surgery was a year ago, she continued to take cancer-suppression medication while receiving regular blood tests, body scans and yearly mammograms to monitor her progress.

A 2006 report found that breast cancer incidence rates held steady from 2001 to 2003 after years of rising, according to the National Cancer Institute website.

Despite that finding, breast cancer continues to be the most common cancer diagnosis among U.S. females. An estimated 178,000 women will be diagnosed and more than 40,000 will die from the disease this year, the institute noted.

The 12 women, most of them from Ventura County, joined the team because of their own experience with breast cancer or watching others battle the disease.

That's the case with Shelly Knutson and Kathy Wallis-Dari, friends of Jones who joined because of Jones' bright outlook while undergoing one surgery or taxing medical procedure after another while caring for her two small children.

Knutson said she also wants the next generation to benefit.

"I'm doing it for my (6yearold) daughter," Knutson said. "I hope the little bit I'm doing will help with a cure so she'll never have to go through it."

Wallis-Dari saw her aunt battle breast cancer and win but doesn't want anyone else to have to suffer.

"It's a 'defeminizing' disease," she said.

The two women work at Wellpoint in Camarillo. And as word spread about the cause among coworkers, a total of six employees are now team members.

Their goal as a team is to raise as much money as they can for the walk. As individuals, however, they must commit to raising a minimum of $1,800. Six have reached the target. Knutson is about halfway there.

Recycling is the team's primary means of fundraising. Family and co-workers are donating cans and bottles and, occasionally, money. WallisDari and other team members who met their goal are helping out the ones who haven't by pitching in to collect recyclables.

"I never in a million years thought I'd be digging in the trash for cans," Knutson said.

Last month, the team collected 32 bags of plastic bottles, 21 bags of aluminum cans and 17 boxes of glass bottles.

The women realized an unexpected benefit from working together for a noble cause- a sense of community.

They come to one another's aid, picking up children from appointments or running errands when one of them is in a pinch.

"You have friends," Knutson said, "but these ladies I can count on for anything."

"This group is very much what I would say true friends are," Wallis-Dari said.

The Avon Walk for Breast Cancer is scheduled for Sept. 15 and 16.

To support team "Healthy Hooters," e-mail Maureen Jones at mncsmom4ever@yahoo.com. or visit walk.avonfoundation.org, the Avon breast cancer site online.