The purpose behind the party

Robin Roberts, second from left, with a group of volunteers for Saturday night’s Ambassador of Hope Gala. Many of the volunteers were cancer survivors.

So Saturday night I attended my second Ambassador of Hope Gala. My first was two-years ago, just a few weeks after I started here at UNMC.

What I remember about my first gala was that it was some kind of party. Big names were all around. The main event was a speech from broadcasting legend Tom Brokaw. Everyone was dressed to the nines and looked fabulous.

In that regard, Saturday night was not much different. In place of Brokaw was Robin Roberts of ABC’s Good Morning America, who inspired the crowd with tales from her public battle with breast cancer. And once again, the crowd was beautiful and dignified.

Volunteer Judy Aden is a breast cancer survivor who has been cancer free for 10 years.

Shakira, Tina and Jabria Spencer volunteered for the gala in honor of Tina’s mother — a two-time breast cancer survivor.

One difference I did note, and truly enjoyed was that the roughly 70 person volunteer army that helped run the event was composed of cancer survivors and people who had been affected by cancer.

People like Judy Brown of Omaha — a breast cancer survivor who has been cancer free for 23 years. Or Judy Aden, also of Omaha, whose 10 years of cancer-free living has allowed her to be around for the births of three grandchildren she may not have met otherwise.

I also noticed some familiar faces, including Tina Spencer — UNMC’s parking and cashiering operations supervisor — who volunteered for the gala along with her daughters, Shakira, 16, and Jabria, 14. The Spencers were on hand in honor of Tina’s mother, a two-time breast cancer survivor.

Like me, Roberts also was happy to see all the survivors.

While stopping for a photo with all the volunteers, she teared up and said, “You’re all the reason I’m standing here tonight.”

It was notes from survivors and supporters, Roberts said, that helped keep her spirits high as she went through her treatment.

I guess I could end my story here — wrap it up with some anecdote about how Saturday evening was a successful celebration of hope — and it most certainly was. There was hope to spare and any event that nets more than $1 million to support a cause can be deemed successful.

But after the photo shoot with Roberts and the survivors, I went to my table — for dinner and met Erik Whitmore and Katherine Lange — a married couple with two children ages 8 and 5.

Katherine’s short hair was a telltale sign that she was being treated for cancer — breast cancer I would later learn. She was diagnosed early this year and currently is part of a clinical trial being conducted here at UNMC on the drug Avastin.

Avastin is an immune system booster Lange takes to help her fight off the cancer, which had invaded her lymphatic system.

As the night wore on, I noticed something different at my table, something I hadn’t been aware of around the volunteers and survivors I met earlier in the evening. The conversation was lovely. Everyone I was sitting with at table 14 — including Lange and Whitmore — proved to be very engaging and easy to talk to.

But there was a celebratory tone to many of my earlier conversations that was noticeably missing at my table. It hit me, what I sensed was uncertainty.

See while Roberts and many of the other cancer survivors may not be out of the woods, they were at least on a plateau where they could catch their breath and reflect on the ordeal they had just gone through.

Lange, on the other hand, is still in the fight. That brought the reality of the evening home to me. While the event itself was quite a spectacle, behind it was the thought of raising money to help Katherine Lange and others who have or will have cancer.

When I asked Lange and her husband how they were doing, both indicated that they were holding up fairly well. I believed them, too.

The tasks of life, such as raising two children, keep them busy. Whitmore’s job as a producer at Omaha television station, WOWT-TV, has him working tough night hours.

But the silver lining to that, they said, is that he gets two days off during the week, which happen to be the days Lange goes for chemotherapy.

“So it works out that he can join me for that,” she said, laughing.

The thing about uncertainty is that it’s one of the only true facts of life. Now and then, something like cancer comes along to remind us of that. Our routines of work, family and friends — which often seem unending and even monotonous — are not guaranteed.

Katherine Lange is very aware of that. She told me she tries not to dwell on her cancer. Because, she said, even that may not be the worst thing that can happen in a day.

“You know, I could get hit by a bus on the way home and that would be it,” she said.

Click here to see a full story about the Ambassador of Hope gala.