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Community Corner

Ashland residents to walk the runway for a cancer cure

Mike Caruso and Beatriz Riordan, both of Ashland, Mass. will be walking the runway in the 21st annual Couture for Cancer Care, the Friends of Massachusetts General Cancer Center fall benefit set for 6 p.m., Tuesday, Nov. 12 at Bloomingdale’s, 225 Boylston St. in Chestnut Hill.  The annual fashion show honors cancer survivors, caregivers, and physicians as they take to the runway.

 

Mike Caruso

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Caruso, a jazz guitarist and software engineer, had just turned 44 when he was diagnosed with leukemia in July 2006. While recovering from stem cell transplants in Mass General’s inpatient medical oncology unit, he met music therapist Lorrie Kubicek, who will walk alongside him on the runway modeling this season’s best fashion.

 

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Kubicek helped Caruso, a member of the OGD Jazz Trio, use music to take him to a life beyond cancer. However, in 2008 when Caruso’s leukemia returned, his guitar sat in the corner of his room untouched for weeks.

 

“Amazingly, she (Kubicek) got me to try my guitar and I really think that was the beginning of my recovery,” Caruso said. “Through music and playing guitar, it gave me some control in a medical situation that was far beyond my control.”

 

Caruso, a father of three girls ages 9, 12 and 15, is now cancer free and using music to help other patients relieve the isolation and fatigue of treatment. He created the Jazzed for a Cure Foundation and with fellow musicians, held fundraising concerts and recorded a CD, “Songs for Amy,” named for his wife.

 

Drawing on his electronics savvy as well as his musical talents, Caruso used the proceeds to enhance the life of transplant patients who must often remain in the unit for various lengths of time. Caruso, along with another donor, provided laptop computers so they can connect with the outside world and Wii video game systems to encourage diverting, low-impact exercise. With donations from the Jazzed for a Cure Foundation, he supplied the art and music therapists in Mass General’s HOPES program with iPads laden with creative tools. Raising spirits as well as funds, Caruso and his friends performed in the unit and also held concerts for the entire Mass General Cancer Center, transporting their audience to a world beyond cancer.

 

Beatriz Riordan

Twenty years ago Riordan was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer not long after her 45th birthday and just ahead of the New Year. Needless to say her New Year was pretty somber, she said. Not long after meeting Dr. Andrew Warshaw, director of the Institute for Pancreatic Cancer Research at Massachusetts General Hospital, things started to look up.

 

“He was soft-spoken and encouraging,” Riordan said. “I saw a small wooden plaque on the shelf in his office that said ‘more people are surviving cancer than live in Los Angeles.’ I found that so encouraging.”

 

When Riordan was in the hospital for a month following surgery she came in contact with some of the most caring individuals she’s ever met. “They had this ability to make you feel cared for,” she said. “Dr. Warshaw was wonderful. He has a way of reassuring you that everything is going to be fine.”

 

Seven years after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, Riordan was struck with another blow. She also had breast cancer. Luckily Riordan is now cancer free and giving back to the cancer community by participating in American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life and Making Strides Against Breast Cancer each year. She’ll be honored for her courage in her battle against cancer at Couture for Cancer Care where she’ll walk the runway partnered with her hero, Dr. Warshaw.

 

“It is such an honor to be been asked to be a part of this evening and walk down the runway with Dr. Warshaw,” she said. “He is someone I hold very dear, and have so much gratitude for. He gave me all these years to enjoy my husband, my children and seven grandchildren. I have enormous respect and admiration for him.”

 

Thanks to the support of her doctor and her family, Riordan now knows she can do anything if she sets her mind to it. A few years ago after surgery Riordan and her husband visited Machu Picchu, Peru where she climbed to the summit of Wayna Picchu.

 

Proceeds from the Couture for Cancer Care support the Friends of the Mass. General Hospital Cancer Center, a group of volunteers who raise funds to bridge exceptional medical and supportive care through innovative programs that help promote whole-person healing.  For more information, or to make a donation to the Friends of Mass. General Cancer Center, call 617-726-1063, email FriendsofMGHCC@partners.org, or visit www.mghfriends.org.

 

 

 

 

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