The Internet is a lifeline for cancer patients,

by Sean Cavanagh
Seattle Times staff reporter

Local News : Monday, July 28, 1997

Bob Farmer proudly displayed the photo to his newfound friends gathered at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

It showed the 56-year-old Bremerton resident standing next to his brother, who four years before had acted as Farmer's bone-marrow donor. "The Gift Of Life From My Brother John," read the inscription beside the picture.

It was the first photo in an album illustrating Farmer's recovery from a bone-marrow transplant. Later pages included shots of Farmer hiking and skiing with his family, testaments to his recovery and his will.

Farmer offered this introduction to his illness for his companions, most of whom had known him before this weekend only as a name on a computer screen.

Farmer was one of about 30 recipients of bone-marrow transplants who came to Seattle from all over the country this past weekend. All of them met through a computerized mailing list, "BMT-Talk," through which they traded humorous and harrowing stories about their battles with cancer, as well as medical advice. This weekend's reunion allowed some of them to put faces to names. It also allowed them to honor friends who had died fighting cancer.

"Some people get cancer and crawl into a hole," Farmer said. "I've had a lot of friends do that - it's just how they deal with it.

"I'm not like that. I need the empathy, the support. You can't get that if you're in a vacuum."

This weekend's meeting, organized by the Hutchinson center and funded with help from Microsoft, brought most of the message-senders together for the first time. There are about 500 subscribers to the service, and they met once before, in Baltimore last year.

"Sometimes you feel like nobody wants to listen to you for that long," Farmer said. "Here you've got a community, you have someone to help you, push you along."

The group's "chat line" has allowed subscribers to exchange advice electronically about medication, ask and answer questions in plain language about their illness, and offer each other encouragement.

The reunion has led to some strange coincidences. Eve Ruff, who helped organize the reunion as director of the Hutchinson Center's library and Internet services, was stunned - and saddened - to meet an old roommate from college at one of the sessions. Ruff hadn't seen her friend, who had acquired lymphoma a few years ago, in 20 years.

"We just stared at each other for a minute, and then started to cry," Ruff said. "We talked about medications, doctors, and that secret language you have when you meet under these circumstances."

The group members include subscribers who have had transplants and others who are preparing for them. This mix allows the more experienced and knowledgeable members to help those new at coping with the disease.

"It's the little things that keep you healthy after a bone-marrow transplant," Farmer said. Subscribers regularly share advice on different stages of recovery, Farmer said.

The service also offers information from other sources. A doctor recently posted a warning on the service that a certain type of medication shouldn't be taken with grapefruit juice, which was news to Farmer and other subscribers.

Sandi Martin hopes to be one of the group's biggest contributors. The 40-year-old Redmond resident had offered to serve as a bone-marrow transplant donor. When she was told that she has been selected as a potential donor, she "freaked out." Wanting more information about the disease, she signed on to the listserve.

"I really feel like I've only got a tiny excuse to be here," Martin said. "But I'm happy to represent other donors."

Farmer and others are happy to have the company.

"When you have a disease like this, you realize that we're all meeting mortality at the same time," he said. "We're all equal."