By SUSAN ORR Courier & Press staff writer 461-0783 or [email protected]
Ann Moore has no doubt that miracles exist.
She was diagnosed in May 2007 with pancreatic cancer – a disease associated with some grim statistics. According to the American Cancer Society, only 24 percent of pancreatic cancer patients are still alive a year after their diagnosis. The five-year survival rate is 5 percent.
Moore has struggled with her health, to be sure, and her tumor is inoperable. But for the past several months her disease has remained stable, and she is still able to enjoy time with her family, stay active with her church, travel, bicycle and look after the family’s new puppy, a Cavalier King Charles spaniel named Toby.
“Doctors look at me and say, ‘You just don’t look like you have pancreatic cancer.’.. It really is miraculous that I’m still here It really is,” Moore said.
Her husband, WTVW-Fox7 anchor Randy Moore, agreed.
“All the doctors have kind of raised their eyebrows and scratched their heads over this,” he said.
Since the diagnosis, the Moores have endured many challenges – physical, emotional and financial.
In June 2007, Moore began a clinical trial through Indiana University Medical Center. A few months later, she had to withdraw from the trial because the radiation treatments caused life- threatening complications.
Bleeding stomach ulcers led to severe internal bleeding, and she required blood transfusions and hospitalization.
“I was to the brink of death. I could barely walk across the room,” she said.
She had to leave her job at the Southwestern Indiana Small Business Development Center because after she’d gone through her 11 weeks of disability leave, she
was too sick to return to work.
In March, once she had recovered enough to resume treatments, she traveled to Baltimore for a consultation at Johns Hopkins Hospital, a leader in pancreatic cancer research. Johns Hopkins doctors wrote a treatment protocol for a “chemo cocktail” of three chemotherapy drugs, and she’s currently on this treatment, which is administered by her Evansville oncologist.
And though her disease is stable, Moore suffers from severe pain in her midsection, caused by the tumor pressing on a nerve. To date she’s had four nerve blocks – procedures that involve injecting the painful nerve with alcohol to dull the pain.
Amid the problems there have been positive times, too.
Daughter Erin created a Web site (www.annmoore.org) last year that was initially intended as a way to share Ann’s health updates with friends and family. The site also includes a message board and links to cancer resources, and through that board Ann Moore has made online friends who post regularly on the site. Doctors have also told her that they refer their patients to the site.
“What I didn’t realize what would happen is this community would come together,” she said.
Sunday, the site hit a milestone of 100,000 page views.
On Tuesday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., a blood drive in her honor will take place at the Southwestern Indiana Chapter of the American Red Cross.
Since her diagnosis, she has taken at least 10 units of transfused blood, and she said the blood drive is a way to help make sure blood will be available for others in need.
The Moores are also excited about plans to bring even more support to local cancer patients and their families.
Last fall, Ann Moore was part of a group that traveled to Nashville, Tenn., to visit that city’s Gilda’s Club. Named after comedian Gilda Radner,, who died of ovarian cancer in 1989, Gilda’s Club is a network of centers that offer information and support to patients and families in a homelike atmosphere. Radner’s husband, Gene Wilder, and friends opened the first Gilda’s Club in New York City in 1995. Currently 21 Gilda’s Clubs operate in the U.S. and Canada, with several others in development.
Since last fall, Moore has assembled a 12-member development board. The group has applied for 501c3 nonprofit tax status, and it has submitted a three-year business plan to Gilda’s Club Worldwide. If the parent organization approves the Evansville group’s plan (a decision is expected next month), then the local board can begin fundraising and select a location for the club.
Moore estimates it will take at least $500,000 to open the club, depending on the location. But she’s confident that Gilda’s Club will become a reality in Evansville.
“It’s been greeted with nothing but enthusiasm,” she said.
The Moores were already committed Christians before Ann’s cancer diagnosis, and they say their faith has been an enormous source of comfort.
Ann Moore said prayer – her own and those of others – have helped her maintain a spirit of peace.
“This is pretty scary, and yet every day I wake up and I’m not depressed. .. I enjoy living I do everything I want to do. Without prayer, I think I’d be in a whole different state of mind,” she said.
The couple participate as adult leaders for Chrysalis, a spiritual renewal program for teens and young adults.
Ann Moore leads a youth Bible study at her East Side Evansville church, Aldersgate United Methodist.
She’s about halfway through an effort to read the entire Bible in 90 days.
Faith in God also gives the couple hope for the future.
According to medical opinion, Ann’s cancer is incurable. According to their faith, all things are possible through God.
“Medicine – as much as we appreciate it, as much as we use it – does not provide a cure. But we believe God could,” Randy Moore said.
After all, Ann says, she believes the Bible’s accounts of Jesus healing the sick, and she also believes that God is the same now as then. So why not reach for a miracle?
“We know what the odds are – but we also know God, and we know what he can do.”
You can help
What: Labor of Love blood drive in honor of Ann Moore.
When: 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday.
Where: Southwestern Indiana Chapter of the American Red Cross, 29 S. Stockwell Road just south of the Lloyd Expressway.
Why: Moore has received several blood transfusions since being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and her family organized the drive as a way to say thank-you and make sure blood is available to others in need.
Details: Call the Red Cross at 471-7200.
(c) 2008 Evansville Courier & Press. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.
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