February 1994
Philanthropy Journal of North Carolina • 9
Leslie Anne
Hummel will
carry all her
supplies on
her bicycle
when she
rides 4,500
miles across
the country.
Photo courtesy
of the Hummels
Bicycle
Continued from page 8
Maine, her fundraising efforts are
right on schedule.
Her bike training, she says, is
another story. A graduate of
Greensboro Day School, Hummel is
undertaking an ambitious academic
program in Potsdam, N.Y., complet
ing her senior year of high school
and freshman and sophomore years
of college simultaneously. She man
ages to squeeze in daily stationary
bike rides, but she says she’ll have to
wait for the spring thaw to really
begin serious training.
But for a varsity track, cross
country, basketball and softball ath
lete, getting in shape to ride an aver
age of 50 miles a day shouldn’t be too
difficult.
And if the strength in her legs
begins to waiver, her enthusiasm can
take over.
“I would like nothing better than
to contribute to the cure,” says
Hummel, whose own sister was diag
nosed with juvenile diabetes at the
age of 13.
Hummel was only eight at the
time, but she remembers her mother
rushing her sister Elizabeth to the
hospital.
Althou^ the signs of juvenile dia
betes were all there — sudden and
extreme weight loss, constant
hunger and an unquenchable thirst
— the family’s pediatrician missed
the diagnosis, nearly costing
Elizabeth her life.
And Elizabeth isn’t Hummel’s
only relative with the disease. Six of
her cousins have it, and the disease
is so widespread in her family tree
that her mother’s side of the family is
the subject of a medical study.
“If you look at the family tree, it’s
kind of scary,” says Hummel. “Each
one of us has the scary possibility' of
passing that gene onto our children.”
Hummel hopes that by the time
she has children, there will be a cure
for the disease.
“It seems maybe absurd, but we
really are a whole lot closer to a cure
than it mi^t seem,” she says, sound
ing more like a doctor than a young
woman in the midst of applying to
colleges. “The solutions for the cure
will really come from genetics.”
To contact Leslie Anne Hummel,
call (910) 288-7237.
Cancer
Continued from page 8
experience from being “just a scary
one to one with a different dimension
to it.”
Adds Morgan, “It’s easier to come
back to a place to get treatment with
a friendly face to meet you.”
It’s ^so possible that the volun
teers Improve the patients’ physical
response to their treatment.
Kevin Sowers, manager of the
hemotology and oncology units at
Duke and director of Duke’s Cancer
Care Consortium, says, however, that
psychology does not necessarily
affect a patient’s condition.
“If you don’t have a positive atti
tude, it doesn’t mean you’re going to
get sicker,” he says.
Sowers, who took care of Linda
Schanherg Clark when she was a
patient at Duke and has worked with
the volunteer program since it’s
inception, says the program “provides
wonderful support opportunities for
all types of patients and famihes.”
The volunteers work with patients
in Duke’s outpatient clinics who are
undergoing surgery, chemotherapy,
radiation or a bone marrow trans
plant.
Volunteers say the positive atti
tude of patients is contagious.
“Cancer patients I find as a whole
are so upbeat,” says volunteer Pat
Booth. “It is very rare to find anyone
in tears. No matter what’s bothering
me, when I leave I feel better.”
But Booth also sees the more diffi
cult side of cancer. Althou^ it isn’t
required of volunteers, some, like
Booth, stick with their patients when
they become ill, visiting them in the
hospital and even being with them
when they die.
Last year, three of Booth’s pa
tients died within a six-week period.
To help volunteers deal with
these, and other stressful situations.
volunteers attend lectures almost
every month. In January, a psychia
trist spoke to the volunteers about
stress management.
“We don’t want volunteers to be
overwhelmed,” says Morgan. “Some
can handle the death and dying end
of it, and for others, it’s not their
thing.”
Volunteers are trained in work
shops and by watching veteran volun
teers work with patients. Formal
training covers listening skUls, gener
al education about cancer, and a
medical understanding about treat
ment. The program asks for a four-
hour weekly commitment from its
volunteers, dthou^ many volunteers
give much more. And those who want
to volunteer but who work during the
day can volunteer a few hours a week
at ni^t or on the weekends, visiting
hospitalized cancer patients.
For many of the volunteers, it was
a personal experience with cancer
that brought them to the program.
Dixie Kirby lost her husband to can
cer in 1989. He was diagnosed with
the disease the year before the volun
teer program started, so Kirby knows
what it’s like to watch a spouse go
through treatment both with and
without a volunteer’s support.
Within 18 months of her hus
band’s death, Kirby was back at
Duke, this time to do for others what
had been done for her.
“I wanted to return some of the
care and concern that had been given
to us,” she says.
Kim Warren decided to become a
volunteer after she was a patient at
Duke. Now, she runs the patient
library, spending two days every
week stacking the shelves, ordering
materials and helping patients find
relaxation tapes or books on coping
with cancer.
Booth, who practiced nursing for
28 years and has been an active vol
unteer for most of her adult life, says
the program at Duke is the best vol
unteer experience she’s had.
She spends more than 20 hours a
week helping to run the program,
train new volunteers and, most
Importantly, helping her patients get
throng treatment.
“It’s probably the most fulfilling,
rewarding thing I’ve done in my life.”
Former Duke University Medical Center cancer patient Kim Warren
helps fellow volunteer Dixie Kirby arrange books in the cancer library.
Photo by John Fletcher Jr.
Ketchum, Inc.
is proud to have served as fund-raising counsel on 320 capital
campaigns that have raised $664,294,366 for non-profit
organizations in North Carolina during the past 30 years.
Member, American Association
of Fund-Raising Counsel