For women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer, this circle of friends does what the big fund-raising organizations and hospital-run support groups can’t.
They provide the “little” things that really aren’t little at all. Like babysitting services for the children of women sidelined by medical treatments. Coping advice from women who have been there. Certificates for massages. Rides to the hospital. Meals for the family. And fluffy, comforting robes in any color but pink.
The Tanner Ta Ta Foundation is based in Woburn but its mission could be promoted in any community whose numbers include breast cancer patients or survivors.
It’s all about the personal.
Started nearly a decade ago by two women seeking to support three Woburn High classmates with the disease, it has evolved into a tight-knit circle of three dozen survivors who continue to reach out to the newly diagnosed.
For their first several years of existence, the Ta Tas held fundraisers at the Woburn Country Club and donated all of the proceeds to the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. While they still contribute to major organizations battling the disease — nearly $120,000 to the Avon Walk alone — members now devote more time to providing local cancer patients with whatever they need, from a ride to a “pick-me-up” basket of goodies.
“It’s direct, specific and to a person, as opposed to research dollars,” says member Kim Delling, 45, who has survived breast cancer twice.
The Ta Tas hosted a Turn the City Pink event on Woburn Common Friday night, Sept. 30, and staffed fund-raising toll booths at locations throughout the city the following day.
The first $250 from those efforts will go toward a gift certificate for a Woburn breast cancer patient who can no longer afford the massages that bring her relief, says Erin Ficociello, who cofounded the Ta Tas with close friend Michelle Amari.
The incidence
The group’s name, Tanner Ta Tas, hints at both Woburn’s dark history of environmentally caused cancers and the humor that is a sustaining force among members.
The city drew national attention in the 1980s with a water contamination lawsuit initiated by parents concerned over the high incidence of childhood leukemia in the city. The epidemic, depicted in the book and movie “A Civil Action,” was traced to water pollution from, among other things, the tanneries that once thrived in the city. So predominant were those processing plants that the high school sports teams are called the Tanners and people throughout the city speak reverentially of having “Tanner pride.”
But the cancer legacy concerns many Ta Ta members, whose numbers increase every year – and with one startling similarity. Almost all in the group were diagnosed under the age of 40, when far fewer cases should be expected. While one in eight women in the United States can expect to get cancer in her lifetime, the majority of cases are among older women. The chances of a woman under 40 getting breast cancer is only one in 233, according to the National Cancer Institute, and one Woburn graduating class alone, the Class of 1987, had four.
The Ta Ta group continues to search for reasons for their disproportionate numbers – not to assign blame but to prevent further incidence, members say.
So far, answers are not forthcoming.
The city engineering department prepared a map plotting the addresses of women who had been diagnosed and the locations of former tanneries, but no clear pattern was evident. State health officials likewise can offer no explanation for the phenomenon.
Ta Ta members say they are continuing their research – while still focusing on helping women already diagnosed.
The role of humor
Laughter is a key instrument in that effort to help – as the group’s name suggests.
The phrase “ta tas,” slang for “breasts,” comes from a comedy movie, “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” and humor remains high in the group’s arsenal of healing tools.
For a woman who has gone through surgery, debilitating chemotherapy and/or radiation and had some time to recover, good-natured clowning sometimes feels like relief.
One survivor, who had a single mastectomy without reconstruction, refers to herself as a “winkie.”
Delling, who received implants following her double mastectomy, says she jokes to her husband that she is “over 40 and under construction.”
The humor comes, says 10-year survivor Lorraine Cogan, “when you’re all out of tears – and that takes a different amount of time for everyone… Slowly, the tears turn to laughter. Before you realize it, the tears are gone. God knows the whole thing is not humorous.”
Support
Common experience provides much of the fodder for the group’s regular get-togethers, whether to prepare a meal for a newly diagnosed patient or plan for an upcoming activity.
The conversation might turn to the over-use of pink items given to someone battling the disease, for example – or how well-meaning friends sometimes say the wrong things.
Member Sheila Kelley, a 10-year survivor, says she was given everything from pink T-shirts to pink keychains when she was first diagnosed. While she appreciated the thought, she says, the pink theme became overwhelming after a while.
For that reason, when preparing a gift basket for a new member, “We try really hard to give navy blue pajamas,” says Ficociello.
Still, members appreciate the symbolic value of pink, especially during Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Ta Ta member Lisa Merriam, battling Stage 4 cancer, told a hushed crowd at the pink lighting ceremony last Friday that she hopes those who get sick of seeing pink ribbons during the month think of people like her.
“Until there’s a cure that works for everyone, we all still have work to do,” she said.
But the work doesn’t stop members of the group from sharing both gripes and gratitude about the way others treat them after diagnosis.
Many members recall how some acquaintances either avoided them after learning of their disease or changed the tone of their voice when they addressed them.
“I remember people coming up and saying, ‘how you doing?’ and everyone had a tilt to their head,” says Kelley.
Bigger issues – how to tell the children, when you should inform a new man in your life about your cancer history, how to deal with the strains on the family – also figure in to the conversations regularly.
So do amazed observations about the number of people – many of them barely acquaintances — who “come out of the woodwork” to help when they hear of a newly diagnosed woman.
Support, they agree, is the most important thing anyone – especially a fellow survivor — can offer.
“The only way women get through this is, they know they’re not alone,” says Delling.
Adds Ficociello, “The common thread among all breast cancer survivors is, we all want to see more breast cancer survivors.”
http://woburn.wickedlocal.com/x360264526/Tanner-Ta-Tas-give-breast-cancer-patients-what-bigger-groups-cant
