Karina Gomes Dick had slept poorly the night before. She was fretting about this moment, an early-morning surgery she was about to photograph. This particular procedure had been performed only a few times before at WVU's Ruby Memorial Hospital and was risky, with a chance of liver failure and death on the operating table—the possible death of Pam Tsuhlares, a patient Karina considered a friend after photographing her for months.
After
changing into scrubs, Karina picked a spot where she could focus
on Pam's face as she laid on the wheeled cart, and on the nurse
who was trying to access the port in Pam's chest. The nurse struggled,
sliding the needle out . . . back in . . . out . . . in again.
Pam winced, and blood suddenly spurted into the syringe. Karina
felt hot, and her legs went numb. She placed her camera on the
table beside her and reached for the wall. Dizzy, she sank to
the floor.
Ammonia. Nurses. Crackers and orange juice.
And this was just pre-op. Karina knew that if she were to pass out during the delicate surgery, she could distract the surgeon. So, rather than follow as techs wheeled Pam to the operating room, she changed out of her scrubs and joined Pam's sister and husband in the waiting room. When the surgeon—with blood on his shoe covers—came out five hours later with a progress report, Karina took up the camera again and was able to capture the concentration and relief on the family's faces as the doctor sketched out his progress.
Karina Gomes Dick is one of more than 30 students taking part in the Cancer Project, a joint enterprise between WVU's Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism and the Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Center. Conceived and funded by Cancer Center board member David Allen, whose father and brother underwent treatment for lung cancer at the center, the project connects student writers, videographers, and photographers with ten patients. The outcome will be a book and a video documenting the intimate experiences of people in treatment for a variety of cancers.
In
journalism school, students learn to analyze situations quickly,
control their interviews, and adhere to deadlines while writing
within an established form: the Cancer Project demands an entirely
different set of skills.
Students have gotten to know their subjects in ways they've never done before, and have struggled to balance closeness with objectivity. They've worked to create stories that are true to the richness of their subjects' lives. They've probed helplessness, fear, and death, and have been surprised to find moments of humor, dignity, and grace. All have been opened to journalism's larger possibilities.
Just one month into the project, the lung cancer patient writer Shannon Blosser and videographer Amity Madison were following died unexpectedly. From that moment on, the students had no illusions about the challenges their patients faced.
Jennifer
Writer Jennifer Roush spent her first four months in the project
simply observing oncologist (and director of the Mary Babb Randolph
Cancer Center) Eddie Reed's weekly clinics at the Cancer Center.
Sitting in on patient appointments with Reed or walking by the
chemotherapy bays, she felt out of place and expected that patients
might resent her intrusion, her youth, and most of all, her health.
Those preconceptions turned out to be wrong.
A first-year master's student in journalism at the time, Jennifer had worked as a beat reporter for the student-run Daily Athenaeum and was the editor of the journalism school's quarterly newspaper, The Compass. She had written only one in-depth story, which was not on a medical topic, before being invited to join the Cancer Project.
Jennifer
was paired with Pam Tsuhlares, who joined the project in April
2002—six months before she would undergo surgery on her
liver. A working artist and piano teacher, Pam had already been
through a round of chemotherapy to shrink a tumor in her left
breast, a double mastectomy, and a "trans-flap" breast
reconstruction. She was just beginning a second round of chemotherapy
treatments, and her hair had grown back about an inch.
From the time they met, Pam granted Jennifer access into all aspects of her illness. She welcomed Jennifer to her chemotherapy and radiation appointments, bared the scars on her chest, and shared her journal. She invited the student to her home in Wheeling, and introduced Pam to her family. After examining Pam's very personal drawings, Jennifer learned that reproductive cancers had killed nearly every woman in Pam's family, creating a terrifying legacy for Pam, her older sister, and her four-year-old daughter Joey. Jennifer was present when Pam's doctor told her that the cancer had spread to her liver.
Jennifer realized that the various strands of her patient's story would come together over one four-day period in October 2002. Pam exhibited her drawings at a Cancer Center event for breast cancer survivors; these drawings foreshadowed and depicted her own cancer. Three days later, on Halloween, Pam underwent the risky laparoscopic surgery that her doctors hoped would finally rid her of cancer. To tell Pam's story, she would shadow her during these four critical days.
Jennifer met Pam as she arrived with her drawings at the Lakeview Resort near Morgantown that Monday, and watched viewer reactions at the show that evening. She spent the next two days, morning until night, with Pam and her daughter and sister as Pam created Joey's princess/witch costume for Halloween and the sisters prepared Pam for major surgery. And Jennifer was there before 5:30 a.m. on Thursday morning when the family dropped Joey off with a friend and headed to the hospital. She waited through the surgery with the family and followed them to the recovery room to witness Pam's intensely painful emergence from anesthesia.
After four days of almost nonstop reporting, Jennifer went home and wrote what would become one of the final scenes of Pam's story.
Jennifer now wants to do long-form journalism after completing her master's degree. She likes going beyond the basic facts into what makes her subjects who they are. She wants to write stories that do their lives justice.
Jonah
Jonah Jabbour was a junior in broadcast journalism when he joined
the Cancer Project in the fall of 2001. He had long been interested
in TV production, and had a summer internship with People's
Court in New York the summer after high school. His dream
was to work on documentaries.
Jonah was assigned to videotape Brenda White. Brenda had been lucky: a minor injury at work led to the early detection of an ovarian cyst, a type of cancer that is usually discovered too late. She was just beginning chemotherapy after undergoing surgery to remove the cyst, and invited Jonah to get to know her at her home in Dellslow, outside of Morgantown. Jonah felt unsure how to approach a woman being treated for cancer. What he discovered completely surprised him.
Brenda's
fun-loving family decided when she was first diagnosed that they
would get together each week to do something to keep their spirits
up. That was easy: her extended family owned just about every
house on the block. On just his second visit, Brenda, along with
her mother and aunt, two sisters, a daughter, and other family
members, enjoyed an afternoon of moisturizing paraffin treatments.
Jonah was not allowed to stay behind his camera: he had to dip
his hands in warm wax with the rest of them.
From then on, he was part of the family, and welcome at every gathering. Among other events, he attended Brenda's younger brother's surprise 40th birthday "spring follies" extravaganza. In weeks of secret rehearsals, Jonah videotaped as everyone from grandchildren to the family matriarch chose songs, choreographed acts, and tried on poodle skirts.
A big stage, audience seats, and decorations transformed a family garage for the party. Among the many acts that surprised Brenda's brother that day were her mother and a sister dressed as Sonny and Cher—her mom in a mustache—lip-synching "I Got You, Babe." For the final act, Brenda and her sisters, all in feather boas, hammed it up to "If My Sister's in Trouble (So Am I)." The highlight of the show came when the four sisters pulled off their wigs, revealing fake bald heads in sympathy with Brenda's real one.
Though cancer has many meanings for Brenda White, as it does for any patient, Jonah felt that her story ultimately was about the importance of family and friends during cancer treatment.
The in-depth reporting on this project was unlike any reporting Jonah had done before. Having learned as a journalism student how to control his interviews, Jonah values the opportunity to follow his story where it goes. He wants to build on this experience to follow his dream of working on television documentaries.
Barbara
When students graduated midway through the project, others were
brought in to replace them. At age 43, Barbara Griffin was a
longtime University employee and a sophomore in the Regents Bachelor
of Arts Program for adult students when her photography professor
recommended her for the Cancer Project in the fall of 2002.
Barbara
had taken just one photography class and didn't consider herself
a photographer when she was brought in to photograph Geraldine
Thomas, a 75-year-old victim of advanced lung cancer. Barbara
was nervous the first time she attended one of Geraldine's appointments,
but Geraldine herself broke the ice: she doesn't shake hands,
she hugs. That helped Barbara feel comfortable enough to circulate,
taking shots of Geraldine, her sister, and the doctor.
In spite of the seriousness of her cancer, Geraldine kept up a mischievous sense of humor. Once when she had to drink dye before a PET scan, Barbara caught her on camera as she stuck out her blue tongue. Another time, Geraldine grabbed her most serious doctor's stethoscope and put it to his heart; Barbara captured on film the two of them laughing together for the first time.
Barbara's minor is in gerontology (the study of aging and the elderly), and the topic dominated her coursework in communication studies. She quickly formed a strong attachment to Geraldine, and sometimes felt conflicted about her dual roles of photographer and supporter. When Geraldine received the bad news that her cancer had continued to grow and that she now had pneumonia and would have to quit chemotherapy, Barbara put her camera down and held Geraldine's hand.
The cancer eventually spread from the right to left lung, leading Geraldine's doctors to discontinue treatment altogether. Barbara followed the family closely through the sensitive transition to end-of-life care. She drove two hours to Summersville several times to interview the family at home and was surprised that even though Geraldine eventually required oxygen and 24-hour care, she continued in good spirits. The many visits from Geraldine's children, grandchildren, neighbors, members of her church, and other community groups helped her to maintain her sense of humor.
Barbara Griffin plans to graduate in May 2004, and hopes to combine her background in communication studies with her interests in the elderly and photography to improve care in nursing homes.
The Results
The reporting phase of the Cancer Project has come to a close.
The book is now in proposal form and contains rich photographic
chapters on the intimate experiences of nine patients. The video,
currently being edited by journalism school students with guidance
from West Virginia Public Television, will portray in depth the
experiences of four or five of the patients.
This unique project not only documented
the individual experiences of cancer patients, but left all of
its participants enriched and encouraged by the strength of the
human spirit.