Kathy Zieger reacted as one would expect when she was diagnosed with cancer in 1998. She worried about her children, who had already lost their father, and who she would name as their guardian.
Surgeons soon removed half of her stomach to deal with the aggressive form of stomach cancer, and she underwent chemotherapy.
"I used my baldness to be bold," said Zieger, of Germantown, as she told her story at the Relay for Life in Urbana on Saturday.
Eventually, Zeiger's cancer metastasized to her liver. After asking her siblings if any of them would volunteer to donate 60 percent of their liver for a liver transplant, her brother, William Maryman of Charlotte, N.C. volunteered.
On Oct. 12, 1999, Zieger received the first live liver transplant that had ever been performed at the University of Maryland. She said she considered the closeness of her family and friends during her fight with cancer a blessing, but said that cancer itself was an evil that needed to be eradicated.
"Cancer is my four-letter word," she said.
The groups who took part in Urbana's Relay for Life each was seeking a way to help the community, and had different means of raising money for the American Cancer Society.
Beatin' it with Beer Bread, a team from Frederick, was selling baked good using ingredients from Tastefully Simple, a gourmet food direct-sales company in Alexandria, Minn. Sisters Kate Dudash, Joanna Sieger, both of Frederick, and Ronna Pearson of Lusby, said they were hoping to raise money so that cancer treatment could advance and help their brother, Bob.
Their team pledged 100 percent of the bake sale's proceeds to the event, and had raised $872 as of Tuesday morning, according to event's page on the American Cancer Society's South Atlantic Division Web site.
Pastor Dave Albertson of Evangelical Lutheran Church gave the invocation at Urbana's Relay for Life and also planned to walk that evening, though after it cooled off a bit.
"I'm walking later tonight, when the sun goes down," he said, laughing. The church's team had raised $945 by Tuesday morning according to the event's Web site.
Pastor Ron Maxson of Adamstown Community Church said he and other members of the Adamstown Walkers were first-timers at the Urbana relay, though they had participated in other relays before. He said because cancer affects so many people, and many people in his church, it was important to him to do something about it.
"This is a way to help," he said.
The Adamstown Walkers had raised $586 at a yard sale, and on Saturday they were selling floating candles to raise money. By Tuesday morning, the team had raised $1,372, exceeding their $1,000 goal, according to the event's Web site.
Melanie Larson of Team Little Wonders said that her team was selling beads and lanyards to relay participants. She said each participant would get one bead for every lap, and a glow-in-the-dark bead for every mile they completed.
"It's an incentive to actually go around the track," she said.
The lanyards were one for $3 and two for $5, all of which was contributed to the event's fund. Team Little Wonders raised $1,010.50, beating their $1,500 goal by Tuesday morning, according to the event's page at the event's Web site.
The Urbana event has raised $60,864.45, according to Laurie Frey, the community manager for the South Atlantic Division of the American Cancer Society.
Frey wrote in an e-mail to The Gazette that an additional $1,500 sponsorship check from Clarksburg based Thales Communications is due by the end of this week.
She wrote that participants can continue to collect money until Aug. 31, and also donations to the event can be made online until then as well. "Then we move into our 2010 season … and we start all over again," she wrote.
E-mail Christian Brown at chbrown@gazette.net.
