YELLOWKNIFE - A half dozen people met recently at Javaroma to talk about Yellowknife's next Relay for Life and their personal battles with cancer.

With a shirt like that it's no wonder Judy Sharp is smiling. A cancer survivor herself she is working with the Cancer Society as the survivor coordinator for the Relay for Life set for June 15 in Yellowknife. - Jessica Klinkenberg/NNSL photo

Maureen Hall, a survivor of three bouts with the disease since1999, is looking forward to the June 15 walk and celebrating another year of being cancer-free.

She walked in the relay for the first time last year and said it introduced her to many people.

"I met more people that I didn't know had cancer. You just never know," she said.

Hall, in a white shirt, sat in a small pond of yellow shirts. The official shirts of cancer survivors for the June 15 relay have HOPE written across the front.

Judy Sharp was wearing one of those shirts, and started as the survivor coordinator in 2004.

Sharp knows many cancer survivors, but some of them don't participate in the relay.

"Not everyone wants to stand-up and say they're a survivor," Sharp said.

"We seem to be very shy."

Sharp said the walk is a chance for survivors to overcome feelings of isolation.

"For the survivors it's a wonderful chance to meet each other. You know that you're not alone."

Despite Yellowknife small size, cancer survivors have trouble meeting each other.

"I never meet these people unless they've had treatment when I have treatment."

And the chances of that happening are very slim, Sharp said.

Relay for Life is a weekend-long event that will bring together teams of 10 or 12 persons. Cancer survivors will lead the first circuit of the walk around the track at William McDonald school.

Sharp said that being diagnosed can be the more horrifying experience. "You feel that this is the end of your life."

The fact that survivors will be opening the relay is a way of easing those feelings, Sharp said.

"It's a way of spreading hope. People (normally) can't see us, but we do survive."

For Sharp this is an especially powerful message to spread. She estimates that the disease has claimed 20 people close to her.

"It's become a real world war three," she said.

Roberta Kennedy spoke about her own struggle with thyroid cancer, and the changes it brought in her life.

Kennedy was diagnosed with cancer the day she turned 31. She proudly said that she had been cancer-free for 10 years.

"I remember making the mistake of going to the doctor's office by myself...when he said the words it sounded like he was talking to someone else...When I got the diagnosis I didn't say a thing."

She said that because she didn't speak the doctor sent the portion of her thyroid that had been removed in a previous surgery to another hospital for testing.

"I walked around for six more weeks like I didn't have cancer."

It was only when the doctor called her and told her that she needed to have a surgery to remove the rest of her thyroid that she felt she had made a mistake.

She said it was a dark time during her battle with cancer.

"My friends abandoned me and I was really angry with them...it took a number of years for me to realize they did that because they were scared.

"I remember going to the doctor and asking him why? Why did I get cancer? I eat a vegetarian diet, I don't drink, I don't smoke I don't do drugs."

She said that there were changes in herself after the surgery; she developed a dark sense of humour and started to laugh.

"Before I was diagnosed with cancer, when I laughed no sound would come out. When I got diagnosed with cancer I laughed out loud for the first time."