Cancer survivors walk for life

RALEIGH -- Heidi Humphrey is 32, and she has already lost both breasts to cancer. The tumors in her lungs and liver are stable, and her doctors tell her there's no need for any more chemotherapy unless they start growing again.

There's nothing more she can do about her cancer at the moment.

But by spending 15 minutes on a treadmill Sunday, she helped raise almost $53,000 to find a cure - maybe for her, maybe for someone else.

Wolfpack red on N.C. State University's campus faded to seemingly infinite shades of pink for the sixth-annual Hoops 4 Hope basketball game.

A pink- and-white striped knit scarf hung around a statue of Kay Yow outside Reynolds Coliseum. Light pink, Minnie-Mouse bows adorned cheerleaders' hair. Players wore metallic fuchsia sneakers.

The game, between NCSU and Florida State, raised the money for the Kay Yow Cancer Fund, which honors the long-time Wolfpack women's basketball coach who died of cancer two years ago.

The Wolfpack women battled back from a 15-point first-half deficit to take a three-point lead before falling to Florida State, 76-69.

But the real winners stood at midcourt at halftime, marking their number of years in remission: two, five, 11, 15 and so on.

"Three weeks ago, I just buried a very good friend of mine," said Portia Lambright, 61, of Cary. "The mere fact that I'm still here means a lot to me."

Lambright and her friend were diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005. Surgery took care of Lambright's; her friend's came back.

Humphrey, an equipment manager for several N.C. State teams, lost her mother to ovarian cancer in 2006. Two years later, she had her own double mastectomy and started chemotherapy to attack the tumors that had already spread to other organs.

"You're not supposed to have Stage IV cancer at age 29," she said. "Basically, you're living scan to scan. You're not really a survivor. You're surviving."

On Sunday, Humphrey drew bids higher than other campus celebrities such as men's basketball coach Sidney Lowe and football quarterback Russell Wilson for the chance of walking next to her on the treadmill.

Her cousin was the highest bidder.

Campus officials wouldn't say how much money each celebrity walker raised.

"It was a bundle," Lowe said with a grin. "I was ready to go for an hour, but they told me 15 minutes."

Assistant women's basketball Stephanie McCormick outbid everyone else so that her father could walk next to Lowe before the game began.

"Coach, you've got me sweating," Alfred McCormick, 60, jokingly told Lowe.

"You stay close," Lowe urged a nearby paramedic.

McCormick said he was walking for his brother Allen, who died of prostate cancer on New Year's Eve at age 53.

"He was my baby brother," McCormick said. "If we can find a cure, I'll be a happy young man."

Lowe's sister Frances is battling cancer, and he watched both his former coach Jim Valvano and Yow succumb to it.

"This is something that obviously is very near and dear to me," Lowe said.

Humphrey said she has been able to draw inspiration from the cancer stories around the NCSU athletic department.

"You look forward, not backward," she said.