Gifting Hope: Susan Bertrand helps patients persevere Jane Verostek:

Gifting Hope:

SUSAN BERTRAND HELPS PATIENTS PERSEVERE

Jason Klaiber

Whenever someone innocently calls her Maureen by mistake, Susan Bertrand doesn’t mind in the slightest. In fact, she actually quite enjoys hearing the name of her younger sister spoken aloud these days, viewing each utterance as a mini continuation of her legacy.

It was shortly before the start of summer in 2001 and soon after the discovery that she was pregnant for the first time that Maureen Humphrey was unexpectedly diagnosed with clear-cell adenocarcinoma, a type of cervical cancer.

Later that same month, she underwent a radical hysterectomy involving the removal of 28 lymph nodes, knowing by then that she would no longer be able to either carry her yet-to-be-born child or ever conceive again.

Still, her hope never dwindled.

Within the year, Maureen began looking into adoption with her husband Shawn and she even found herself able to return to work as a human resource coordinator for the C&S Companies in Syracuse.

By the beginning of 2002 though, concerns resurfaced when she began to feel an ache in her lower back.

As her oncologist’s MRI machine would reveal, that dull, worsening pain was the result of a tumor.

Rounds of chemotherapy and radiation ensued at New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, but her family members never left her side, remaining as positive as possible at her urging.

A fundraising raffle held to pay for her medical expenses ended up bringing in about $25,000, but before the scheduled prize drawing and the awarding of that collected money, Maureen died in January 2003 at the age of 31.

A portion of the funds went instead toward the building of a playground at the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central New York, and the rest was used as seed money for Maureen’s Hope Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that Susan started in her sister’s honor in 2004.

“When you are going through difficult times and grief, the best thing you can do is give some purpose to your pain,” Bertrand said.

At first, she and a group of volunteers were mainly delivering individualized gift baskets to area patients of all ages who had been battling cancer. These packages would often contain water bottles, blankets, lip balm and lotions for post-radiation moisturizing. If a patient loved fishing, for example, angling magazines would be included.

“Sometimes they just need to know that there are people who care about them,” Bertrand said. “The focus is truly on the little things that we can do to help bring them comfort and joy.”

While running the foundation out of her basement and still coping with her sister’s death, Bertrand decided to turn to cycling as a continual outlet.

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Maureen’s Hope Foundation was founded by Susan Bertrand in 2004 to provide support on an emotional level to various hospital patients.

She eventually embarked on what she intended would be a 100-mile bike ride as part of Livestrong Challenge Philly in August 2010. Coming up on a hill amidst a torrential downpour, Bertrand hit a pothole and was propelled off the road in the middle of the race. She struck a tree and slammed into a cement boulder, later landing in the trauma center with a Grade 4 liver laceration. She was placed in a medically induced coma and given last rites, but she came to in less than three weeks - indication of a miracle to her, the surrounding doctors and her husband, Ron, who had previously been told to wish her goodbye. Today she views that brush with death and her year-long rehabilitation as crucial parts of her journey.

“That experience in my life truly gave me an understanding of the physical pain that people go through,” Bertrand said.

With the help of meditation, yoga and acupuncture, she summoned the resolve to return to the Livestrong Challenge and later the PanMass Challenge, which she raced in alongside players from the Boston Bruins ice hockey team.

Now operating Maureen’s Hope out of a Baldwinsville office, she channels into its mission her memories of overcoming that adversity, a perspective that lends itself to the empathy she feels for families dealing with loss, just as she did when Maureen passed away.

To help maintain a connection between patients and their family members during a prolonged hospital stay, the grassroots foundation offers a pediatric program called You and Me Bears, named after a 2009 song by one of Maureen’s favorite groups, the Dave Matthews Band. Supported by the band’s charity, the Bama Works Fund, this program allows the patient to hold onto a handmade emotional

support teddy bear while their family can keep a matching one at home.

Maureen’s Hope also steers a year-round Beads of Courage program, which provides children fighting life-altering diseases with beads strung together on a leather cord.

Often akin to mile markers, each bead stands for something different. One symbolizes the completion of 100 rounds of chemo. Another in the shape of a heart signifies a blood transfusion. Some kids hang their beads proudly on their IV pole, while others comfortably wear them as necklaces. All of the beads, however, represent a tangible record of courage and the hurdles the children have prevailed over one by one.

“When you see pictures of the kids holding their beads, I think the visual of that is so powerful,” Bertrand said.

About six years ago, Maureen’s Hope started the corresponding Carry a Bead program, which has seen professional, collegiate and high school athletic squads as well as musical artists like the Zac Brown Band and John Mayer wear beads and write personal notes for hospitalized children as gestures of encouragement.

“It’s human solidarity at its finest,” Bertrand said. “It makes the kids feel they are not in their fight alone, and the value of that is priceless.” SWM

For more about Maureen Humphrey’s story and the namesake foundation’s multiple programs, visit maureenshope.org.