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Gilda Radner was an American comedian and actress best known for her 5 years as part
of the original cast of Saturday night live.
She died at the age of 42 of ovarian cancer.
Before passing Radner became an icon for public awareness of detection and treatment of
the disease.
After her death, her husband Gene Wilder helped start Gildas Club.
Gildas brother Micheal explains how it was started and his involvement.
Well when Gilda was dealing with her cancer in California, she was sent to a cancer
support community there and she found it to be so helpful in dealing with her own cancer
that when she got back to the East Coast she found nothing like that.
So she was actually bringing people into her home in Connecticut forming a little
support group because she realized how important social emotional support could be for
someone dealing with cancer.
After Gilda passed away, her husband Gene Wilder along with the late Joel Seagull and
Mandy Patinken and some others brought Joanna Bowl which had been one of the people running
the cancer support community in California that Gilda had gone too and had also been
Gilda's personal cancer psychotherapist.
They brought her to New York and started what had turned into the very first Gildas
Club.
And s the first one opened in Manhattan in 1995.
And then here in Metro Detroit a group of women had gotten together and one of the women
had actually been at that cancer support community in California and realized we
needed something here and they evaluated the various choices and there were a couple
choices and they decided that Gildas Club offered the best program, best overall
inclusive support for anyone dealing with cancer.
And also this being Gilda's hometown, it just made a great deal of sense.
Gildas Club is a network of clubhouses where men, women and children living with
cancer as well as their friends and family meet to learn how to live with cancer,
whatever the outcome.
Joe Perry the Executive Director of Gilda's Club of Metro Detroit explains.
Well Gilda's Club is a free cancer support community for men, women and children, their
family and friends, anyone who has been touched by any type of cancer.
I think there is a big myth that Gildas club was just for women with ovarian cancer
because that is the particular type of cancer that Gilda had.
But that s is not the truth, Gildas Club is open to anyone who has been touched by any
type of cancer in anyway and that can mean that the person themselves can have a cancer
diagnosis or a family member or friend can have a cancer diagnosis or that they have
experienced a death due to cancer.
You know as with most family, my family was majorly touched by cancer, when I was 12 years
old my Dad was diagnosed with Lung Cancer, he passed away when I was 15 and it was a
very difficult time.
In the early 70's nobody talked about cancer, it was still that secret that
everybody really wanted to keep and there really wasn't any open discussion about how
we as a family were impacted by the cancer.
And that is one of things we learned here at gildas club, that it is not just the person
who is affected by the cancer, it is the whole family.
Maddy Ortiz became involved with Gildas club when her brother was diagnosed with cancer.
Since then she has become involved with the club through her volunteer efforts.
My mom came in and was checking out the place because my brother is a cancer
survivor and I kind of just latched on to that.
She was volunteering and then I came to volunteer and then she became the marketing
director here and I am here almost everyday just volunteering and doing what I
can to help out.
Like with my brother having cancer, I know what it is like to need the support because I
was only 4 when it happened and I felt so alone and I felt like I didn't know what was
happening.
And there are a lot of kids here that are even younger then that.
I run the children's choir here, not a big choir yet but I have two girls in my choir,
they are sisters and I just started the choir not too long ago, but it was probably our
second rehearsal ever and there dad let my know that their mom was really really sick.
And you never know what you are going to come across in the house, but the girls
didn't know.
They knew she was sick but they didn't know how bad it was.
One week they called in and cancelled and I was like yeah that's fine no problem.
And they came back the next week and nobody had said anything during the rehearsal,
but after the dad came up to me and said I don't know if they told you but there mom
passed away.
I was just like oh my gosh I didn't know it was that bad.
And he said the girls are fine obviously if they didn't say anything about it, and I was
like you know it is really great that you let these girls keep living there life as they are.
And was like I really want to thank you because these girls really need you right now.
And it is really great what you are doing.
And just little compliments like that just makes everything that I do
worthwhile knowing that these two little girls can forget about what happened with their
mom for an hour and a half, two hours and just know that everything is going to be ok.
Because they can talk about whatever they want to me, talk about there crushes, just
anything.
We sing the songs that they like to sing, but if they have a problem they know they can
talk to me.
One of the things about Gildas Club is the sense of community its members feel.
Here they tell of their experiences.
Well it helped me heal, it connected me with people who understood what I was still
going through, were as my family and friends who were still wonderful, were after a
year there are like enough is enough, but I was still recovering.
And so I came here and I had conversations and group meeting with people who were
in the same positions that I was in, your treatments are over but you are still
recovering.
You're learning how to get back o the old normal or whatever you want to call it.
And that got me through a lot of issues I was still dealing with, because the treatment I
had was pretty hard, pretty difficult to deal with and I had a lot of issues that
needed to be resolved and the staff here and the members here all helped me do that and
we help each other.
So as much as I was getting help I was helping other people at the same time and I
wanted to volunteer so I started helping with Potlucks and bring food and kept
getting more and more involved, I am a newcomer, I can relate to the experience
of having learned I have cancer within 2 and a half month period.
SO what I found out was that if you have need of a service, because I think a lot of times
you find out that you are not alone.
The whole process is just one that is very affirming and I think that is something that
we all can use more of.
Gildas Clubs are located throughout the world.
For more information please visit gildasclub.org.