Kent woman makes Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure part of her life

Linda Ness became acquainted with the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in the most personal of ways. She lived through the drama of a breast-cancer diagnosis and treatment.“I had breast cancer 10 years ago,” said the Kent woman, who has been in remission ever since her cancer was treated with a lumpectomy and radiation treatment.

“It’s so funny how it takes something like that for us to get involved.”

Ness isn’t just one person getting involved, though. She is a point of inspiration and major cheerleader for her co-workers at the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 286, based out of Auburn.

Every year since 2004, Ness has been organizing a team from her office to do the 3-mile event, which includes a walk.

“I think it’s a great cause,” she stated.

Her co-workers agree.

“It’s very inspiring,” said David Maxwell, business manager of the organization, noting Ness’ devotion to the event gets others charged up, too.

“We just show up and walk,” he said, grinning.

But Maxwell added his office has been made aware that breast cancer isn’t just a woman’s disease, when their team goes out on the walk.

“We’re trying to get across that it’s not just a women’s issue – men get it too,” he said.

For all her involvement in getting her office energized for the annual event, Ness is surprisingly low-key about things. Even in describing the diagnosis that gave her life such an abrupt turn.

“My doctor set me up for a mammogram and I blew it off,” Ness said with a small smile, of the detection that nearly didn’t happen. “But she thought enough to call me (as a reminder.)”

Ness went ahead and had her mammogram, learning to her surprise that she had a “very deep, but very small” tumor, which was then aggressively treated with surgery and seven weeks of radiation.

To the deeply spiritual Ness, her doctor’s lifesaving phone call was an act of God.

“I realize now that it had to have been a God thing, that the doctor called me and they jumped on it right away,” Ness said. She added of her subsequent return to good health, “I was blessed.”

In 2001, in her first year of remission, Ness saw the advertisements for the breast-cancer walk and her curiosity as a survivor was aroused. She did that first walk with her family, with whom she is very close.

Joining her was her husband, daughter, son-in-law, son, three grandchildren, and both her sisters. The poignancy of that walk, surrounded by her loved ones, as well as thousands of others whose lives had been touched in some way by the disease, moved Ness deeply.

“When you see at the end of the three miles, the survivors’ parade, it’s so sweet, so heartfelt,” said Ness. “There’s so many of them – and they’re all survivors.”

At Local 286, where she has worked as a dues administrator for 24 years, Ness also found reverberations with her brush with cancer.

Her co-workers had been tremendously supportive during her radiation treatments, which often left her exhausted.

“They were like, ‘do what you need to do; take the time you need to get better,’” Ness said. “I’ve been here 24 years and it’s always this supportive.”

Within a few months of Ness’ diagnosis, two co-workers’ wives also were diagnosed with the illness, making the close-knit office of 14 even more aware of the impacts of the disease.

So, it probably wasn’t a major stretch for Ness and her coworkers to join forces and walk. This will be their sixth year as a team.

“It’s just a really fun morning,” Ness said, of getting out and putting in the miles. “Until you do it, you can’t appreciate how much fun it is.”

Joining Ness this year will be her family, too, including husband Ben Ness (her high school sweetheart, to whom she has been married 43 years), her son Brent Ness and wife LoRea Ness, and daughter Lisa Doris, along with her former son-in-law Bob Doris, and, now, four grandchildren.

When asked if it was like a family reunion, Ness said, “Oh yeah, we have a lot of those anyway, but yes.”

In another family-style arrangement, Ness’ union office will be joined by two other labor offices: IFPTE (International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers) Local 17, and SPEEA (Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace) Local 2001.

IFTPE has been participating in the walk with Local 286 since 2006, and SPEEA joined forces with them two years ago.

Ness said that while signups each year are a little slow to start, they pick up as the June 6 date of the race draws near.

“We’re rehoping for at least 60,” she said of participants from all three offices.

The combined group also has done well in the fundraising part of the race, placing third in the local race as a nonprofit last year, after raising close to $6,000.

The statement of seeing so many others, all walking for a common cause, is a powerful one, and part of the reason that Ness continues to do it, as well as encouraging her coworkers to be involved.

“It’s absolutely incredible so many people show up for a cause,” Ness said. “As far as I can see, in front of me, and behind me, there are nothing but people.”

That kind of solidarity is something Ness has experienced on a personal level, as well, through her recovery from cancer.

“There were so many people who got me through it,” she said.

The 2010 Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure takes place June 6 at the Seattle Center.

The day before the event, there will be a related health fair running 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Seattle Center Exhibition Hall.

For more information about either event, or becoming involved in them, go to komenpugetsound.org.