The face of hope, faith and community

Published 11:00 am Saturday, July 22, 2006

Walli Corn is a gracious soul.

So much so, that a cub reporter at the local newspaper could misspell her name repeatedly throughout a lengthy two-part feature story – as one of the current editor’s approximate height, weight, build and hair color did in these pages, 14 years ago this month – and she would never come forward with a word of complaint.

So, a belated correction: That’s “Walli” with an “i.”

We shared a little laugh about that this week, catching up for the first time since Walli began her ongoing scrap with a rare form of cancer against which she’s holding her own. Her diagnosis last September – grim, she acknowledges – of a malignant melanoma of the spinal cord made Walli just the 23rd such recorded case worldwide since 1906, and an enigma for oncologists.

Thirty rounds of radiation and six months of chemotherapy later, the tumor remains, in her words, “as snug as a bug in a rug. It has maybe diminished a small amount, but hasn’t gone anywhere.” But neither has it grown, and Walli herself dodged paralysis and is graduating from a wheelchair to a cane. Her prognosis is such that oncologists recently told her: “We’re giving you your life back. See you in six months.”

“It was an absolute gift,” she says. “Wouldn’t everybody love to hear that?”

As a “poster child” among local cancer survivors, Walli Corn hopes to make an appearance at next weekend’s Relay for Life on the Bainbridge High School track, and we look forward to seeing her there. Sponsored for the first time on Bainbridge Island by the American Cancer Society, the round-the-clock event will raise funds and awareness in the battle against a cheater of life, a thief that hastens loss long before we’re willing to surrender a loved one to memory.

Teams will circle the track throughout the evening, night and morning – 16 groups have signed up, unprecedented for a first-time event – signifying the ongoing challenges faced by those stricken, and by those medical researchers working to conquer the disease. At dusk, a “luminaria” of candles will offer quiet commemoration of those lost.

But for the face of hope, look no further than Walli – a

community fixture from her time with a Bainbridge youth ministry taking sleeping bags to Seattle’s homeless (hence that feature story written by the cub reporter so many years ago), and more recently as an endlessly cheerful staffer in the optometry office of Dr. David Kirscher. She’s amused by the notion of becoming a “poster child” at age 65. And, she says, she’s glad for so many things. For the cards and dinners and rides to the clinic that come her way from friends. For the view of a favorite tree from her bedroom window. For each new day.

“The doctors have all wondered, where do I come from because of my attitude,” Walli says. “I’ve probably had (only) two down times since my surgery. I was blessed with an attitude of faith, but I’ve come away knowing that you can’t do it alone. There’s no way you can fight this disease by yourself.”

Hence the Relay for Life. We’re grateful to write about the event on Bainbridge Island, to add a few words about Walli Corn, and for the chance to spell her name right this time – not that she’d complain.