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Families Touched By Cancer Rally At Relay

Tampa Tribune photo by JOHN CEBALLOS

Kelly Hughes and her fiance, Mike Neill walk a lap. Both have multiple family members who have been afflicted by cancer.

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By JOHN CEBALLOS, The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 15, 2008

Updated: 03/13/2008 06:11 pm

RIVERVIEW - Many stories of hardship, hope, adversity and triumph circulated around Riverview High School's track last weekend.

Kelly Hughes, a first-grade teacher at Boyette Springs Elementary, and her fiance, Mike Neill, had more than enough to share.

"We've had so many people in our families affected by cancer that I don't even know where to start," Hughes said.

The couple participated in the Relay for Life of Riverview, which kicked off at 1 p.m. March 8.

Relay for Life seeks to pay tribute to the lives lost and touched by cancer and to raise money to help fight it.

"We're just one of more than 4,600 relays across the country," said Kristy Deaton, event co-chairwoman. "We finally have more relays than Wal-Marts."

Deaton estimated this year's event raised more than $106,000 for the American Cancer Society, exceeding the goal of $90,000.

Fifty-two teams took part this year compared with 17 last year. Deaton credits this year's Saturday afternoon start time of the 24-hour event - last year's event began on a Friday evening - for the increase in attendance.

During the event, participating teams camp out on the school's football field while at least one member walks or jogs around the surrounding track at all times.

Though Hughes had not attended a relay in four years, she has served as a team captain in past years. This was her first year as a member of the Boyette Springs Elementary team, and Neill was attending his first relay.

"It's something we've both been meaning to do," Neill said. "We thought it was a good opportunity to get involved with an event in our community that supports a great cause."

As is the case with most of the attendees, the event's mission is deeply personal to the couple.

Neill's mother, Jean, died of ovarian cancer when he was 7. Both of his grandfathers, Herbert Lemay and Virgil Horner, died of lung cancer. His two grandmothers, Peggy Lemay and Jeanette Horner, had throat and tongue cancer, respectively, though neither died because of her disease.

Both of Hughes' parents are cancer survivors - her father, Robert, from prostate and her mother, Vyonne Johnston, from melanoma. She also has a grandmother, Grace Hughes, a grandfather and an uncle, Joe Hughes, who succumbed to throat cancer, as well as a grandfather, Charles Shinn, who died from liver cancer. Another uncle, Paul Hughes, is a prostate and melanoma survivor, and one of her cousins, Mike Hughes, is a melanoma survivor.

Kelly Hughes brought fresh memories of the damage the disease can cause to the first day of the relay - she had attended the funeral of her friend Yvette Halliwell that morning. Halliwell died of brain cancer March 3.

"It really is an incredible coincidence, but it also shows how many lives have been touched by cancer," she said.

Hughes knows as well as anyone. When she was 10 weeks old, she was diagnosed with Wilm's tumor, a rare type of kidney cancer that affects children.

Her parents had noticed what appeared to be a lump on her side, and she was taken to a pediatrician.

"The doctor examined me and told my parents that I needed to be in a hospital within 10 minutes," she said.

After she was diagnosed, the family was given three options for her treatment. They could do nothing and have no chance for her survival, have her undergo radiation and chemotherapy and have a 20 percent chance of survival, or go through radiation and chemotherapy, as well as the removal her right kidney, and have a 50 percent or 60 percent chance of survival.

Her parents chose the last option, and she endured seven hours of surgery the next day to remove her kidney and a softball-sized tumor. They were informed that the cancer had been in Stage 3, and she underwent chemotherapy treatments three times a week for the next year and a half.

At age 5, Hughes was informed that she was cancer-free.

"I am an extremely proud and thankful cancer survivor," she said.

During the Relay for Life of Riverview, she was surrounded by plenty of people who felt the same way.

Reporter John Ceballos can be reached at (813) 865-1555 or jceballos@tampatrib.com.

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