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`Cancer Bus' smooths the road to health.

Article Excerpt
Byline: Richard Gordon For The Register-Guard

I first boarded the Cancer Bus one bright morning in May 2008 at Peace Harbor Hospital in Florence. I started to take the nearest empty seat. Immediately I was greeted with a loud chorus, "No, that's Mary's seat!" I staggered toward another empty seat, "No, that's Russell's seat!"

I faced my new companions with a smile of resignation. "Maybe I should just get off?"

Everyone laughed and exclaimed, "No, no, don't do that. You're going with us!"

A lovely lady, Karen, beckoned me with a smile, "Here, you may sit beside me."

Thus began my odyssey of 45 daily trips to Eugene and back for the high-powered radiation of my prostate cancer.

The Friends of Florence Van, a small airport shuttle look-alike, has 14 seats for radiation patients, plus friends and family who sometimes accompany the passengers to radiation treatments at the Willamette Valley Cancer Center in Eugene or the Oregon Institute of Urology in Springfield.

For many years I had been aware of the service. Now, somewhat to my chagrin, I found myself at ground zero.

Esther Smith, wife of P.T. Smith of Florence, was...

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