Author: Elizabeth Gaucher

Turning Point Images: The Girl in the Bathtub

/ Elizabeth Gaucher / 12 Comments

Via EPA.gov

Since the invention of the camera, human beings have known turning point images.

These images capture moments denied to the outside world, but intimately connected to the realities of specific scenes of human suffering. Most often those scenes take place where no one wants to go. Photographers who document these places take great personal risk to bring remote, hidden pockets of pain into the daylight where we all can see.

And once you’ve seen, you can’t go back.

Consider the Vietnam conflict’s “Napalm Girl.” The iconic image turned 40 years old this week, and you can see the picture and read an interview with the woman who was that child in the photograph here.

(Nick) Ut’s editors made an exception to a policy preventing frontal nudity in photos and went ahead and published it. Known simply as “napalm girl”, the photo transcended the divisive debate about the rights and wrongs of the Vietnam War and crystallized the barbarity of war.

Also in the news this week, a photograph of a five-year-old Kentucky girl made national headlines when it almost appeared in a U.S. Congressional hearing about mountaintop removal (MTR) coal mining practices. The photograph shows the child sitting naked in bath water that appears to be contaminated with toxins and heavy metals from mining runoff. (Click here to view the photograph on Katie Falkenberg’s website: The Human Toll: Mountaintop Removal Mining.)

Note: The photographer removed the photo of the girl in the bathtub due to the controversy, but other powerful photos remain on this link.)

There is a lot going on in this news story, and it continues to evolve. There are accusations of child pornography, sham hearings, sleazy politics, and emotional manipulation. I’m not sure where it will end, but I feel confident we have reached our turning point image.

The girl is not running and screaming, like Kim Phuc in the napalm attack on her village. She sits still as a stone, her arms wrapped under her legs. Her head is down. She is a portrait of submission and vulnerability, and any adult looking at her knows she has no real knowledge of the insidious presence in her bath. She probably knows water is supposed to be clear, but she has no choice but to trust those who care for her and accept her surroundings.

We Appalachian people like to think ourselves hard to tame. The Hatfield McCoy feud movie was on The History Channel last week, and there was plenty of armchair whoopin’ and hollerin’ about how fierce our people can be. Big men, big guns, lots of chest puffing and tough talk. I wonder this week, as a little child shows who we really are in 2012, if we will own the truth.

We are vulnerable. We are alone. We have trusted and we have hoped for the best. In many ways, I think we have remained deliberately ignorant about what is all around us.

Will we ever get up and run? And if we do, is it too late?

You can read the testimony by Boone County WV resident Maria Gunnoe on June 1, 2012, at the hearing titled “Obama Administrations Actions Against the Spruce Coal Mines: Canceled Permits, Lawsuits and Lost jobs” (sic) by clicking here.

The #PowerofMany: Confronting Cancer as a Community

/ Elizabeth Gaucher / 2 Comments

There are many statistics that paint the picture of cancer’s advance on the people of West Virginia, but this is one of the most powerful:

Patient Visits to David Lee Cancer Center at CAMC (2004):  17,000
Patient Visits to David Lee Cancer Center at CAMC (2011):  39,000

When I was a little girl, “cancer” was a whispered word. I didn’t really understand at the time, but now I appreciate that people are loathe to say out loud the things they fear the most. There is good reason to fear cancer, especially if you live in southern West Virginia. The reality is that most residents of our region will either be diagnosed with some form of cancer or see someone they love diagnosed with the disease.

A few decades ago, that meant a lot of whispering.

Philosophers say that courage is not absence of fear, but mastery over it.Today, the fear is still real, but the courage is growing. The courage is growing because our knowledge is increasing, and our awareness of prevention as well as treatment options is growing exponentially. This time of year, for example, it’s common for friends of my generation to wince in mental anguish remembering how we used to slather ourselves in baby oil and lie on light-reflecting blankets to “tan” ourselves as teenagers. We know now how dangerous that is, and how it damages skin cells often to the point of abnormal growth. We have friends who received a melanoma diagnosis, most of whom survived with the outstanding treatment of oncologists and first-rate cancer care facilities.

At Charleston Area Medical Center (CAMC), the most common cancers seen in women are breast, lung, uterine, colorectal, and kidney; in men, it is prostate, lung, colorectal, kidney, and urinary/bladder. There is a dramatic need to increase and improve outpatient services to these patients, and CAMC is rising to the challenge with its campaign to build a  new state-of-the-art facility for patients in our region.

The odds are, if you live in southern West Virginia, you or someone you love will be served by this center one day. If you are reading this from another part of the world, you may face similar odds for a cancer diagnosis. We all need to get involved in turning this ship around.

We don’t whisper about cancer any more, we say it out loud. We speak its name and we write about it to call it out of the shadows where we can see, as a community, what we plan to overcome.

Receiving a cancer diagnosis and pursuing treatment will, in most ways, always be about the power of ONE. One person’s body, one person’s choices, one person’s courage. Holding the hand of that patient, strengthening her in the process, increasing his choices, and improving treatment availablity is about the power of MANY.

During the social media awareness week (May 27 – June 2, 2012), information about the new cancer center and the Power of Many Campaign will be shared by the CAMC Health Systems and CAMC Foundation social media accounts.  You can simply repost or retweet from CAMC social media accounts, or create your own personal messages. Esse Diem invites you share your thoughts on this blog if you do not have your own; simply comment here or email me at edg@longridgeeditors.com and I would be pleased to send you some post ideas and stats.

(If you want to do something extra easy, just use the social share buttons here and pass this post along to your network.)

Thank you for any support you can lend to the cause. You can make a real difference in this community effort to change the course of a cancer diagnosis.