PA R K E R C O U N T Y T O D AY
OCTOBER 2015
They volunteered. They raised money and organized
events that benefited various cancer charities. That was
more than a quarter-of-a century ago.
“We started out volunteering and raising money for
other charities,” Walsh said. “We helped other organizations for years, but there were services that we are
passionate about providing that these other or ganizations
either could not or would not focus on. Since we were
already raising the funds, we decided to establish an organization to provide these much-needed resources in our
community. I guess you could say we wanted to take it a
step further.”
Branch and Walsh both had a vision of an organization that would help local patients in a different way,
without all the red-tape and bureaucracy so often found in
other charities.
They developed the vision into a reality in 2003 —
Careity Foundation, an organization where all the money
raised goes directly toward helping patients and providing
services for underserved people in their community.
They have become famous for providing mammograms
to countless women who probably would never have
gone for them, had it not been for Careity.
Still, they do so much more.
“A lot of people think that because of Obama Care
or the Affordable Care Act, everyone has insurance and
everything is fine,” Walsh said. “Unfortunately, that’s not
the way it is. Not everyone has health care and those that
do, have a hard time getting the care they need as quickly
as they need it.”
A lot of the patients Careity helps are hard-working
people who have not been able to afford adequate insurance or those who have insurance that simply won’t cover
the test or some of the procedures the patient needs.
Gina Wren was one of the former; a pretty, petite
young woman with thick, long curly hair and a radiant
smile. She was a hard-worker and a divorced mother of
two. Her job was in the electronics department of the
Weatherford Walmart, something she liked. But it worked
both ways, her department manager and co-workers liked
her as well. One of Wren’s children was a special needs
child Wren cared for with the help of her parents. Even
with her parents’ help, there never seemed to be an abundance of expendable income in her bank account.
If providing for her family wasn’t enough, her health
got in the way.
“I noticed a lump in my breast and it hurt,” Wren said.
“It was so bad that I couldn’t lay on that side without
pain.”
So she went to her family doctor. “He told me I
needed a mammogram. I said, ‘I don’t have the money for
a mammogram.’ My doctor said, ‘Let me tell you about
Careity.’
“I truly believe that it was God’s will that I found
Careity and that I found The Center for Cancer & Blood
Disorders. They took really good care of me. What Careity
couldn’t take care of the Moncrief Cancer Foundation
caught.”
When Wren’s diagnosis came back, she had breast
cancer, Stage #2. Not what anyone wants to hear but in
this day and age your chances are good. Wren went on
14
with her life that still focused mostly on work. She put
off dealing with her breast cancer until after the hectic
holiday season was over. After all, it was only Stage #2,
right?
Then, out of nowhere, she developed a limp.
“My boss walked by and said, ‘What’s with the
limp?’” Wren said. “I had no idea. I thought maybe it
was a touch of bursitis.” She kept on going. Black Friday
rolled around, Walmart’s busiest day of the year.
“I went to pick something up and felt something like
a tear in my back,” Wren said. It was followed by excruciating pain that knocked her on the floor. “I couldn’t get
up. I just stayed there for a while.”
Finally, she ended up in an urgent care facility. The
doctor there told her she had strained a muscle and sent
her home with a prescription.
Not until a couple of weeks later, when she was on
the operating table to get a port put in so they could start
treating her breast cancer, did anyone realize there was
something very wrong with the energetic young woman
with the radiant smile.
At The Center for Cancer & Blood Disorders, doctors
discovered what it was.
“They found that I had bone cancer,” Wren said. “So
now I had bone cancer and breast cancer. I’d been working at Walmart with a broken back.”
Besides Careity’s mammogram program, the foundation provides navigators to help patients undergoing
chemotherapy or radiation.
Wren was in a body cast from Dec. 14, 2014, until
March 15, 2015. “After the cast came off, I went to a
walker,” Wren said. “I had to learn to walk all over
again.”
Chemotherapy continued until mid-June of this year.
By the third week of chemo, she was losing her hair.
“By the third week, if you needed to find me all you
would have to do was follow the trail of black curls. The
lady at the Careity office at the center picked out a wig
for me.” That’s another one of the services that Careity
provides.
The supportive clinical services at the Center for
Cancer & Blood Disorders are thanks to Careity; they
include nutritional counseling and supplements, oncology massage, acupuncture and a variety of pain management support, psychotherapy, and help from Careity
Breast Care Center in Weatherford.
To help patients further deal with the complications of
battling cancer, Walsh, a biochemist by trade, developed
Dromeo, an emu oil business with analgesic, dry skin
and hair and nail therapy products. The products can be
useful to anyone but are especially helpful to patients
who are battling cancer and dealing with the side effects
of chemotherapy and radiation.
Wren’s hair is now growing back, and she’s walking
just fine. She is participating in a clinical trial.
“The last thing [they] told me about the bone cancer
was, ‘We can’t cure it but we can manage it.’ But you
know, I truly believe that we will get rid of it. I honestly
believe that cancer is not what will kill me. I’ll probably die of something really stupid. But it won’t be bone
cancer.”