Garden Party
Sierra View celebrates cancer survivors
It’s been 16 years since Victoria Nucum, now of Fresno, has been cancer free. On Friday, Nucum returned to Porterville for Sierra View Medical Center’s “Survivor’s Day 2022” celebration held at the Roger S. Good Cancer Treatment Center in honor of National Cancer Survivor’s Day on June 5.
With a theme this year of “Hope Grows Here” — the celebration is held each year in honor of
National Cancer Survivor’s Day.
Upon arrival, Nucum placed a hot-pink, cutout paper heart, on a banner with the drawing of a large tree, which will stay on display on a hallway wall for a couple of weeks.
The banner will stay on display at the cancer treatment center for others to see for encouragement that they too can beat cancer.
“16 Years” and “Keep on Moving” are the words Nucum wrote on her paper heart, referring to the number of years she has been cancer-free. The longestsurvivorship patient visiting on Friday has been cancer-free for 20 years.
The board idea belonged to Carol Ann Moore, community relations, after seeing a “Love Grows Here” sign.
“It’s one of those things that you see one time and think it’s a good idea. I changed it to ‘Hope grows here’ and it came to fruition. Hope Grows Here,” Moore said.
After retirement,
Nucum said she has been staying with children in Fresno but she always comes back for doctor appointments and special events.
“It’s nice how they coordinated all this,” she said as she toured a small garden area which was recently re-landscaped by a Springville company at the cancer treatment center.
The garden space serves as a tranquil place for those receiving treatment.
“We were here Wednesday and they were planting all the flowers,” said Likins Achterberg as he toured the small garden.
Sandy Achterberg, who wrote “Still working on it” on her paper heart, said she’s currently in chemotherapy and still has a few months to go.
“It’s beautiful,” she said. “I get to look outside (during treatment) and there is something beautiful to look at.”
The garden is a small walking area with benches, flowers, and fountains converted to planters – in lieu of trickling water, the fountains have been filled with soil and colorful flowers.
Sharon Scarbrough, who said she has been cancer-free for three years, also toured the recently-landscaped garden.
“It’s really nice now. A lot of our flowers had died. It was looking pitiful after that last hot spell we had,” said Crystal Davis, director of the cancer center. “We had patients asking if we could spruce it up and we got to talking and thought it was a good idea to lift people’s spirits.”
The planning for the garden and the celebration started in late April, Davis said.
“It started getting prettier as time went by,” she said. “There’s two small (garden) areas. And the Sierra View Foundation supported the project. The landscaping company is fine turning the water (need) and replanted the flowers on Wednesday.”
For the celebration, the Cancer Treatment Center sent invitations to all of the patients on their mailing list, said Valeria Reyes, marketing and event specialist.
After touring the garden, guests were presented with a boxed lunch to go and a small succulent plant.
The celebration ran for two hours, allowing guests to stop by during their lunch break. And for those not working, it wouldn’t take much effort or time away from their day while still having a special impact, said Malynda Parsons, public relations specialist.
Recently renovated and remodeled, the Roger S. Good Cancer Treatment Center is a 13,000 square foot facility that features cancer treatment technology that’s on par with major university hospitals such as University of California Davis. The facilities are designed to offer stateof-the-art, comprehensive cancer care within a friendly environment where patients can feel comfortable.
In town since 1990, expanded in 2004 and in 2014, the center sees an approximate 100 visits by patients daily. Though unknown how many patients have gone through the CTC since it opened, they do have an approximate 550 new diagnosis each year.
Long term survival has increased so dramatically with current treatments that some of the patients have been coming for more than 12 years, the CTC reported.