Windham Area Relay For Life: Personal Cancer Stories

the Chronicle, Willimantic, Conn., Thursday, October 14, 2004
Hebron Sisters Fight Cancer Together
Jared Ramsdell Photos
Sisters Dawn Bailey, 21, left, and April Bailey, 20, of Hebron are both cancer survivors. They are helping to organize the Windham Area Relay for Life, which will be held this Saturday and Sunday.
By CHRISTINA HALL Chronicle Staff Writer HEBRON — When April Bailey agreed to help organize the Windham Area Relay for Life, she thought she was doing it just to support a good cause as well as her sister, Dawn Bailey, a cancer survivor. But three months ago, cancer hit the 20-year-old Hebron resident directly when she was diagnosed with uterine and cervical cancer. "I never thought it was going to be me," April Bailey recalled during a recent interview with her sister. After receiving the diagnosis, April Bailey said her first thought was, "I'm going to be bald. That was my worst fear." Then as the diagnosis settled in and she couldn't help but think, "Am I going to die?" This is not the first time the Bailey family, which includes the girls' parents Leroy and Carol Bailey, has had to deal with cancer. At 14, Dawn Bailey — now 21 — was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Disease after doctors found a tumor around her heart and lungs. For 18 months Dawn Bailey underwent rigorous treatment to fight the cancer and has been cancer free since, although she admits the fear of cancer coming back worries her, especially when it comes to for-annual check-ups. So, she knows how her sister feels. "This wasn't something that I wanted my baby sister to go through," Dawn Bailey said. The Bailey sisters are turning their personal struggles with cancer into something positive by helping with this weekend's Windham Area Relay for Life at the Eastern Connecticut State University's baseball complex. Last year was the first year the girls got involved, at the urging of their mother. This year, Dawn Bailey is "survivor chairman," helping to recruit other survivors to participate in the relay, organize a brunch, order pendants and a number of other tasks.		"It's good moral support for people going through what I've already been through," Dawn Bailey said of the relay. April Bailey described the relay as her "sup-port link," and said she and her sister will be delivering a speech, which promises to be a tear-jerker. "I'm a sap, but if it'll get people to come down and donate their time, then I will stand there for hours," she said. Both Baileys are very vocal about the importance of the relay and raising money to find a cure. The gathering of support at the relay "makes you really, really believe that someday there will be a cure," April Bailey said. "That someday there's not going to be anymore little kids in the hospital hooked up to tubes and no one's daughter, son, husband or wife will have to come home and say, `I have cancer."' April Bailey discovered she had cancer after a routine visit to her gynecologist because of heavy bleeding during her menstrual cycle. After learning a pap smear showed irregularities, April Bailey opted to undergo a new procedure to treat her cancer, rather than heading straight to chemotherapy.Doctors cryogenically froze her uterus and removed 17 cancerous cysts. She will continue to get regular pap smears to see if the cancer comes back. If it does, she may have to get chemotherapy, or worse, have a hysterectomy. Although the future is uncertain for April Bailey, she is thankful she went for regular check-ups and advises other women to do

Hebron Sisters Fight Cancer Together