Jill Bruce tried dealing with her cancer diagnosis alone, talking with her doctors and sifting through the Internet's coldest corners.
One Web site even tried to predict how long she might live: Just fill in the blanks with vital statistics and the diagnosis.
Then someone called her from the Patrick Dempsey Center for Cancer Hope & Healing.
"For me, it was out of my comfort zone to even come in," said Bruce, who has breast cancer. "In my case, walking in here the first time was a little overwhelming because everyone was so nice."
When the shock wore off, she realized she'd been given a gift. The center and its workers helped to fill a space that her family, who live out of state, could not.
"I'm pretty much here alone," said Bruce, who is single and lives in Auburn. "It really fills that void."
The center began its work in spring 2008, founded and initially funded by its famous namesake, "Grey's Anatomy" actor Patrick Dempsey, a Maine native.
On Sunday, the center plans to hold its biggest fundraiser yet. The Dempsey Challenge will include bicyclists, runners and walkers. In all, 3,500 people have registered to take part in the noncompetitive events.
However much is raised, the people served by the center say they find balance in the aid they receive in the center's modest office on the Central Maine Medical Center campus.
"It helps to stop thinking of myself as a cancer patient and think of myself as a person with cancer," said 69-year-old Barbara Mushlit. She was diagnosed in June with breast cancer.
The center offers lots of services, all free. They include yoga, massage, counseling, nutrition advice and instruction on applying makeup to hide the effects of cancer-fighting treatments.
"The best thing to do is listen, offer resources and support," said Mary Dempsey, who serves as the center's coordinator and is the sister of Patrick Dempsey. "We always add we are here for them as much as they choose to use our services."
The work helps counter a health care machine that can become so focused on fighting a malignancy that it forgets to treat the person, Mushlit said. Too often, friends and family seem to do the same.
"I don't want their pity," Mushlit said. "I don't want that to define me."
For others, such as Stacey Dinwiddie of Litchfield, using the center's services can ease pain and gloom.
Since her breast cancer diagnosis in October 2008, Dinwiddie has dealt with infections and allergic reactions to her care.
"Everything that can go wrong did," she said. The center became a place to lighten up. She borrows little books that find humor in her predicament. Both she and her husband have had massages.
"It was awesome," Dinwiddie said, shaking her shoulders as she described the hard-tissue workout. "My husband didn't like it so much. It's not really his thing."
Maybe something else at the center would help him, said Neil Bement of Auburn.
"They will customize it to what you want from them," said Bement, who at 53 is dealing with his second colon cancer diagnosis. "They offer a smorgasbord of support."
He's enjoyed massages and stretched in the yoga class. He is working to steer more of the center's activities toward men, particularly in hopes of getting people outside and moving.
On Sunday, he plans to join the walkers in the Dempsey Challenge. He hopes to surprise folks who may dismiss him as a cancer survivor.
"I like 'thriver' better than 'survivor,'" he said. "We're not dead yet."
Yet, mortality is something that everyone who has a cancer diagnosis copes with, he said. It happens as soon as the word is spoken by a doctor.
Bruce agreed.
"Living with cancer is a whole new experience," she said. "That's what they teach you here."
The work began the day she arrived.
"I needed to hear somebody say, 'You're not alone,'" she said.
dhartill@sunjournal.com To see more of the Sun Journal or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.sunjournal.com. Copyright (c) 2009, Sun Journal, Lewiston, Maine Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
Copyright (C) 2009, Sun Journal, Lewiston, Maine